Pesadillas
by psycho-eyes-ON
Summary: Nocturne returns and traps Danny in a nightmare. Within it are Dan, Clockwork and destruction. Sometimes it feels real; others he sees it the way it truly is. Can he find a way out? Cannon only.
1. Prologue

**AN: Psycho, here. This is the edited version of the prologue, in which I have fixed some of the errors that were brought to my attention. Thanks for all the reviews that my readers gave me for the original though. 3**

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><p><strong>*Prologue*<strong>

_Night is always dark. It excites the darkest desires and evokes the worst in all of us. It is when most murders are committed; when the seediest of characters prowl to take their fill of what life may bring them; and it is, perhaps for this reason, we quite rightly have fear of the dark. Children know this fear; it is intuition. Adults, even teens, have learnt to fool themselves countless times over by calling it irrational, the stuff of nightmares. Just nightmares, they say. __The stars watch everything and yet they never act. It is this kind of merciless peace that feeds their eternal flames._

A black haired boy reaches a hand out to the night sky. They shine as far away as ever, perhaps farther, just to mock his poor attempts. One day he would reach them, he thinks.

"See that's Orion, the hunter… and there's his club. Just there." He points, looking over to his friends as they lie on the roof of Fenton Works.

"No matter how many times you tell me, they still look like dots, Danny." Tucker's voice smarts his pride like acid. His friend pays no attention, but carries on regardless.

"…Why don't we just enjoy the view, guys? We've not had time to do this since…" she, the only girl amongst them, trails off. They know the truth hurts, even though they're fourteen, they know.

"_I still exist, that means you still turn into me"_

"Everything's the way it's supposed to be." Danny said under his breath with a shiver. It's his hope that, if he echoes the time master's words often enough, he might believe it too.

"Exactly. So there's no need to worry about it, Danny. Clockwork knows everything; he wouldn't say that unless he meant it."

"Thanks Sam." His gaze never leaves the heavens and his smile doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"Okay, so that one…_there_ is the North Star" he points out, after just a moment of taut silence. "If you can find it, you can always find your way…home?" A tear of pure darkness rests upon his stretched fingertip. It expands before him; a double of the night sky, except the constellations are not of this world. It's a silhouette, a spectral body, glowing iridescent white at the edges of its form. Then the eyes open. They are blood red, like sin, or anger, and they shine like liquid malice.

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><p><strong>AN: Please R&amp;R,<strong>

**Psycho xx**


	2. Awake?

**AN: Hi, Psycho-eyes-ON, again. Here's chapter 1 of Pesadillas. I hope you enjoy it, if not please feel free to give me any constructive criticism you may have. I am still new to , so I imagine there will probably be areas I can improve on. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom**

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><p>The rain lashed down in pity for the boy, who was too young to be called the man he thinks he is. His shoulders are stooped with responsibility and his hand, out-stretched, searching. An emptiness fills his eyes, which glisten a sombre blue under a fringe, saturated with water.<p>

He knows only two facts about his existence, at this moment:

1. He is Danny Fenton, the halfa.

2. He is on the verge of remembering.

He has no idea how long he has been sitting there, outside Fenton Works. Nor does he know why. If he was to guess, he'd say that he has always been there and that it has always been raining, for there is no way for him to judge. The puddles swell, ripples shooting veins of ochre light across them in a bizarre dance of streetlights and the neon sign on the outside of his house. _What exactly happened? There must have been something before this – some reason for me to be sitting here…but what?_ Thoughts bounce around a sleeping mind, one that returns no answer.

Standing up, he sees a light in the house. His parents must still be awake, even though it's late. Danny winces as he steals a glimpse at his watch. 22.30; Long after his curfew.

"Great! That's the second time this week – I'm _so _grounded for this!" The words fall out with surprising conviction, yet upon hearing them he is sure that this is true. Shrugging his shoulders he enters, the door giving way before he has chance to turn his key.

"And where have you been, young man?" Came the voice of the imposing, bulk that was Jack Fenton.

"Out."

"Out, where?" His father asks threateningly, "Does it have anything to do with that ghost punk?" His eyes narrow to mere slithers, so thin that they could have been sewn together.

"What?" _that was unexpected_. "N-no! For God's sake! All you guys ever think about is ghosts – people can actually have a day without ghosts being part of it, you know." He pauses, but Jack's scepticism forces him to explain further. "…I was round at Sam's with Tucker, busting out the new Nightmerica movie, _okay?_" it all comes out in an unstoppable torrent, but the minute he's said it, he instantly regrets it.

"Well…alright then, son." He lets Danny pass, taken aback and, now wide-eyed, at the sudden outburst. Then he realises, it was probably just a teenage tantrum and he shouldn't think any more of it.

"I'm going to my room." He murmurs, with a voice like gravel. His eyes seem magnetised to the floor, in shame.

Smoothing the wet hair from his eyes, he flops onto his bed. _Ugh, why do I feel so stressed today? Sure, Lancer was on my case at school, but I chilled out with the guys; I should be fine._ He stares up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the swirling lines of the plaster, perhaps a night time flight would do him good. The rain in his eyes, affecting his vision was a hindrance, but that was what made it so exhilarating. The thought of it made his body yearn for the adrenaline of defying gravity. Plus, it would be worth practising, in case he ever had to fight a ghost on a rainy day. It was a poor justification and he knew it, but it was just enough to convince him.

He swung his feet over the edge of the bed, trainers collided with floorboards.

"Going ghost!" He cried, fist-pumping the air. Nothing happened. Yet, for the first time he realises his throat is sore. _Why's it feel like I've been shouting? Unless I used my Ghostly Wail… that'd explain why I can't go ghost…_

With a sigh he plonks himself back down on the bed. He rakes a hand through his damp hair, as if he could probe his mind for information by doing so; knowing that something was fundamentally wrong, but also that he couldn't do anything about it until he knew what it was. _Maybe things will make more sense in the morning. I ought to go to sleep; I've got school tomorrow._

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><p>Morning came, with spears of light, piercing the thin cotton curtains. The light blinded him, momentarily, as sleep ridden eyes processed the harsh remnants of a shattered dream, where nothing is as it seems. Whatever he had intended on finding out last night had fallen to the same oblivion that belongs to forgotten dreams, and it would be some time before he would remember again. A quick glance at his alarm clock told him it was already eight in the morning.<p>

"Danny you're gonna be late for school!" his sister, Jazz, shouted through the locked door.

"I'll be fine." He called back in a hoarse, fatigue-ridden grumble. _I can just fly to school anyway. She knows that. So why's she on my case today? _He shrugged it off, probably just the returning habit of an over-bearing older sister. Her footsteps fell away, down the hall.

He pulled a t-shirt over his head and put on some comfy jeans and trainers; made himself ready for the day. He determined to change his clothes further by trying to change into Danny Phantom. Nothing happened. No rings formed; no hair was bleached; ghostly glow was extinguished still and his attire remained unchanged.

"Guess I'll have to take the bus, then." _Jazz'll probably have already gone by now._

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><p>"But dude, you have ghost powers! You shouldn't <em>have<em> to take the bus." Tucker exclaimed.

"I know…but for some reason I just can't go ghost!"

"Well, now you know what it's like for everyone else, just like you've always wanted." A smile played like trapped lightning, in her lavender eyes.

"Gee thanks, Sam! Is that supposed to make me feel better, or worse?" He pouted with crossed arms. She just laughed.

"Neither. I'm just saying, be careful what you wish for" another laugh boiled over. "And that's coming from me!" she added, remembering a previous adventure, where she had wished she'd never met Danny. "Dreams have a funny way of coming true in this town, don't they?"

All this gained her was a sullen look and a murmur of confirmation. Yes, wishes did come true in this town, but never in a good way: always at the hands of ghosts.

"I just don't get why this is happening to you now, man." Said Tucker. "It's not like we've seen much of Desiree since Paulina's birthday."

"Yeah? Um, I know this is going to sound really, weird, guys, but what happened last night? Did anything happen to me?" He keeps his voice low, embarrassed to have to ask and ashamed to have forgotten. Sam and Tucker shared a glance, as both questioning his sanity and debating how much should be revealed, at the same time.

"What do you mean, Danny?" Sam asked, slowly, stalling for time.

With a sigh he said about his sore throat, powerlessness and above all lack of memories. Yet, the more detail he spoke about it, the less certain of it he was. _How can I be taking this so seriously? So what if I've got a sore throat and my powers are on the blink? It's happened before._

"You don't remember? We all went round to mine and watched some movies in the games room; then it got to about nine and you said that you were going to go home. Nothing happened. To be honest…it was probably the most normal things have been, since you got your powers, Danny." She smiles, but it's marred with pity and confusion.

"Oh yeah! Sorry, guys." He tries to sound genuine and the memories are only just returning, but the feeling of recognition is lost from them. It is as though they have only just been planted into his mind, rather than being his own. "Guess I was more tired, than I thought I was." He jokes, _but why?_ He wonders. _If we were watching Nightmerica films, I shouldn't have been able to sleep, let alone feel tired._

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><p><strong>So, what's happening to Danny? You'll just have to sit tight and keep reading, my dears! Let me know what you think and don't forget to rate and review, or whatever the system is on here! :P<strong>

**Psycho x**


	3. School Daze

**AN: Psycho, again. Here is chapter two of Pesadillas for you! It's a bit more light-hearted than the previous two but, trust me, its necessary. :P**

**I'm hoping to keep the updates fairly frequent, but I am back at uni, so who knows? *shrugs* **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Two: School Daze<span>

The three of them had gone to class without a further mention of Danny's worries. The boy had resolved to simply wait and see if things improved, until then, it was best not to think about it too much. Rather, they had been more concerned with Tucker's reaction to _Nightmerica: The Return_…

"I still can't get over the bit, where she was coming out of the swamp and the couple were running and screaming – Tucker just started begging the TV 'don't let it get them, don't let it get them', 'Run!" hahahaha!" Sam laughed. "And then he screams when Nightmerica taps the guy on the shoulder 'Ooooh noooo!'" she runs out of breath, tears glistening on her eyeliner, as she'd nearly doubled over laughing.

"Hey! Could be worse…at least I wasn't the one having to remind myself it was just a film, right, Danny?" He gets no answer. "Come _on!_ You were the one sat there, staring and whimpering 'It's not real – none of this is real'!"

"What?" Asks Danny, feeling the words tearing his pride.

"Don't take it so seriously. We both know that Tucker's the real scardey-cat, here."

"Oh, yeah." He smiles, half-heartedly. It feels like a normal day and like they'd had a normal night, yet something about him remains unconvinced. They're his friends, true enough, or rather they act like his real friends…why can't he trust in that? "I still can't believe that Lancer sprung that test up on us." He changes the subject, away from the night, which he remembers only as well as one can see through mist.

"What are you talking about? Lancer's been on about that quiz for a month. He'd reminded us about it often enough!" said Sam.

"Yeah, I mean, the only reason we decided to hang out the night before a test was because you _said_ you felt confident about it! You _told _us you'd revised." Tucker said defensively, packing away his notebooks and pens from his desk. "We arranged it because you didn't want to start freaking out, doubting yourself with pre-test nerves." He said pointedly, waving a biro in front of Danny's face.

"Yeah, well…" _Why am I agreeing with this? I don't remember any of this. Though Lancer's always looking out for a way to fail me…Ugh, but then why does it feel like I only remember when someone tells me?_

"Danny," Sam sighed, pulling her rucksack over one shoulder. "If you think you've failed it, I'm sure Mr. Lancer would let you resit the test. I refuse to believe it's the end of the world."

"Yeah, it's hardly a nightmare situation." Danny smiled, feeling himself relax, as this truth washed over him. "…unless my parents were to see my report card." He added quietly.

"Oh, yeah. Your parents and the whole 'Fentons get A's, or in your father's case B minuses'. They're still on about that? Yikes!" Sam grimaced. "And I thought my parents were bad for wanting me to wear pink, which, by the way, is never gonna happen!" They laughed.

"Mmmm. Smells like Sloppy-Joe day." Tucker savoured the air around him. "My nose knows, Sam. No ultra-recyclo whatever stuff today." She tuts, and looks about to object, but their teasing is so routine, after all the years they've known each other, that she just lets it go.

Lancer shot them a dark look, as though he'd skim read some of the test papers already. They walked past his desk and headed towards the door. Their teacher was now otherwise engaged. A student stood talking to him, as they left. He was average height; had dull, black hair, which looked as though he was growing it out; and strangely coloured eyes which held a most unusual shade of brown, one that seemed tinged with red.

"Someone seems keen…" Danny said, under his breath. _He looks just like…but it can't be. Clockwork promised!_

"Huh? Oh Darren?" she asked, following Danny's line of vision. "Well, he is new; he's got a lot of catching up to do.

"Darren? That's his name?"

"Yeah, but you wouldn't think it – he's trying to get people to call him _Dan_!" Tucker said.

_Somehow that doesn't surprise me,_ Danny thought. _So, maybe things aren't quite so normal as I thought…or, it could just be coincidence? If you ignore the similarities, he isn't acting like Phantom._ He shrugged it off. Sam and Tucker both knew about his evil self, so they'd have said something if they shared his suspicions, wouldn't they?

"Hey guys – are we gonna reunite Tucker with his meat or not?" Danny grinned, as he saw Sam pretend to gag behind the meat lover's back.

"Hey, guys…Sam," Valerie greeted them, as they walked over to their usual lunch table, with trays, now laden with food.

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><p>"Hi Val," said Danny.<p>

"Val? Since when did you two get so close? Or, did we just _imagine_ that her favourite past time was hunting the Ghost Boy?" Sam asked cuttingly, gesticulating her sarcasm, as though it was palpable in the air, as well as in her words.

"Oh, well, she's actually not that bad once you get to know her. Did you guys know that she's a black belt in karate? Or that her favourite fruit is kumquat, just because it's a funny word?"

"Bet that comes in handy when she's trying to kill you. You're just flirting with disaster there, dude." Tucker opined.

They set their trays down at the table and ate in silence. Sam and Valerie could argue without speaking; their looks said it all for them.

However, it didn't escape Danny's notice that the new guy "Darren" had walked in and made a bee line for the popular table. This was strange in itself, _but for them to actually welcome him with open arms – as one of them!_ That was something else entirely.

"Weird, isn't it?" Tucker followed his line of vision. "We've dreamt of becoming popular for so long and yet, what we couldn't do in five years, he's managed in two short weeks. That's just messed up, right?"

"…Yeah." Danny said in a detached way. His alternate self was _popular?_ Shouldn't that mean that he ought to be popular too? He couldn't help but wonder, as he stared at them, laughing and joking; most likely at what Dash and Kwan were planning on doing to his later on. _What is it that makes us different?_ Before he could finish that thought, Darren's eyes shot over and latched onto his, in a connection that was painful to sever. Those eyes: they'd gained the brilliance of car's tail lights through the darkest depths of night. He'd known he was being watched and, Danny thought, he was beginning to realise the significance of just why he had been stared at with such a horror lined face.

"Ugh, what the hell's he looking at?" Danny grumbled, trying to shake of his unease.

"No offence, but I'm pretty sure he's thinking the same thing, Danny." Valerie was cautious in her tone, as though she'd seen some ulterior motive for his fixation on the boy, who would be called Dan.

The mood shifted, then, became less uneasy. Things fell back into place, felt like they were returning to the way they were meant to be. That's how friendship's supposed to be, though, isn't it? A rustle of cotton and bin liners, prowled over to their table. The kindly, yet aging and plump, dinner lady wove in amongst their shoulders, took their trays and smiled "Excuse me," she said, with a sickly sweet voice. A waft of her perfume reminded Danny of pear drops, liquorice and cavities. It was a smile that squashed her eyes, firmly shut. They looked as though they'd been stitched, her eyelashes used as the thread. It was a barracuda smile, full of teeth.

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><p><strong>AN: Will Danny manage to put the pieces together...or, will he always be the Clueless One? lol <strong>

**Stay tuned to find out more, guys.**

**Psycho xx**


	4. Dark Night Dark Times

**AN: Psycho-eyes-ON here. Am I being good today, or what? Two chapters in one day! **

**Thanks to all my gorgeous reviewers - you guys help keep me writing, honest. It's great to know that my first fanfiction's being so well received. **

**So, before I start rambling, here's chapter three of Pesadillas...**

**Diclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Three: Dark Night; Dark Times<span>

The night is cold, like a wintery kiss upon her cheek. The three of them had been sprawled out, stargazing, on the roof of the Fenton's Op-centre for the last few hours, with Danny prodding the night sky, in his futile attempts to show them how to find the constellations. He always seems happiest when his head's in the clouds, she thinks, with a smile gracing her lips.

"See that's Orion, the hunter…" he marks out another cluster of lights to them. She wants to see the pictures he finds within them, even if it's just so she can share this with him, but to her, the stars hide their fires.

"No matter how many times you tell me, they still look like dots, Danny." Tucker remarks, on her left hand side, somewhere in the gloom. The jibe clearly goes unnoticed by their mutual friend, who carries on all the same.

"…Why don't we just enjoy the view, guys? We've not had time to do this since…" _since you saw a future, you didn't wish to see…_she trails off; some things are better off left unsaid, these last few months had taught them that and so much more.

A sharp intake of breath to her right tells her he understood, _of course he did_, she realises, _it's not something you can forget_. Under the pale new moon, she sees his outline shift. He sits up and his spine jitters with a shudder.

"Everything's the way it's supposed to be." It was only with the softest tone that he said this, she knew he never meant it to be heard, but after last month, she can't blame him for clutching on to it like a life line. It has been his mantra, as of late and she hopes that perhaps, one day, it'll be more than just a simple quotation to him. _Maybe._

"Exactly. So there's no need to worry about it, Danny. Clockwork knows everything; he wouldn't say that unless he meant it." _Don't make this worse for yourself, Danny. You're only human…_

"Thanks Sam." It's an automatic response, she realises. He doesn't believe a word of it, his eyes are filled only with the stars and that smile…it's so small, almost imagined. _You prevented it, so why keep bringing it up?_

"Okay, so that one…_there,_ is the North Star." He traces a path to the heavens above, clearly the silence made his own thoughts too loud, too much to bear. "If you can find it, you can always find your way…" he pauses, mid-sentence. From the corner of her eye, she sees Tucker mouth "_Finally!"_ But, she knows that something's wrong here. "Home?" Danny finishes, only it's inflected like a question. Then she sees it, on the very tip of his finger is a drop of the abyss.

It expands, spreading like pathogens, until it takes form. The form of a monster, one they thought they'd seen the last of. Its body is cloaked in stars, innumerable constellations, which would be unfamiliar, even to Danny, she notes. Horns sprout from this mass of lights, a luminescent glow, revealing where its head is; where the sky ends and the beast lies. The eyes shine, bright and bloody red, overwhelming in their raw hatred. This is the face of revenge.

Danny's finger is in-line with the creature's chest and his mouth forms into a small o. The ghost of dreams raises his arms from his sides and envelopes Danny within the folds of his sweeping cloak. A scream rips the air in two.

"Danny!" Sam and Tucker cry in unison, scrambling to their feet. They are too late, shock had slowed them that crucial moment too many.

"Let him go!" She shouts, but the nocturnal, chameleon has vanished, along with the boy.

He is night's personification. His name: Nocturne. A true _pesadilla:_ returned to exact his revenge.

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><p>"Hey, Fentino!" Dash hurled the name at Danny, as he walked down the corridor to his locker. <em>Don't react to it<em>, he tried to tell himself. "Fenton!" Dash repeated, again.

"I'm not deaf, Dash," he grumbled. "What do you want?" He said with an exasperated sigh, turning to look his adversary in the eye.

"Oh, it's not what I want this time, Fenton. This is a request." He said, menacingly, cracking his knuckles, as he approached the skinny, dark haired boy.

"What…?" He began to ask, but then he saw _him_, Dan, the boy whose face, to Danny, seemed like a reflection that crossed the laws and decades of time. Without realising it, Danny had taken a step backwards, towards the wall of lockers. The cool chill of the metal, stung his back like a whip, one as cold as his, now absent, Ghost Sense. He was trapped, it seemed.

"Let me handle this one, Dash. You head to class. Lancer warned you that he'd suspend you from the football team if you skipped again, remember?" The voice was the same as the one Danny heard in his nightmares, the same that he'd heard only a month ago…or was it ten years from now?

"Oh crap! You're right." He hesitated, the decision between trusting his heart or his mind, trapping him half way; he compromised. "You're lucky this time, Fenton. I'll get you. Count on it." The stocky blonde's voice sounded like it was attacking his throat as a substitute for Danny. Quickly, he left, darting down the corridors to Ms. Tetslaff's class.

Danny, on any other occasion, would have breathed a sigh of relief, but he knew that in this situation, he had been dealt a much worse fate. Dan came closer, so that there was barely more than an inch between their faces; so that the full force of those eyes was on his prey.

"Hello, Danny. I'd say this is nostalgic, but you, of all people, should know that I don't look back on the past. I look towards the future - my future." He smiled, the hall's fluorescent lights, gleaming upon sharp, Draconian teeth.

"What do you want, Phantom?" He asked, injecting false bravado into his voice, but despite this attempt, it's clear that he shows more bravery, than he feels right now.

"Oh, the usual: you out of the way, preferably gone for good; and to see your world crumble around you, of course."

"Y-you can't do that – you know you can't! Destroy me and you'll kill us both!"

"You really think I would take such a risk? Don't you see, child? Me, my future; I'm inevitable. I still exist, even outside of my time-stream. That's the price you have to pay for Clockwork's meddling." Dan grinned, full of certainty.

"No!" Danny shouted, stepping away from the locker lined wall. He would not be confined or suppressed, not today! "I promised! I promised I would never turn into you; just like Clockwork promised to make sure you'd never escape."

"You promised? Oh, _please_! Could you be anymore naïve? You promised and yet, here I am." He sneered, before revealing his true form, that of a twenty-four year-old ghost. Blue skin, red eyes, fangs and white, flaming hair, revealed his foreign nature. "You know, I've heard that Amity's ghost problem's been getting out of hand lately…I wonder, how many of the town's ghost hunters are privy to Inviso-Bill's true identity. I'm sure they'd _love_ to find out…" he paused, savouring the threat, which fell from his tongue, so fluently.

"You wouldn't…" but there is no certainty here, all of past experience tells him the contrary action, deserves more faith.

"Wouldn't I…?"

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><p><strong>AN: Yeah, there's going to be a bit of perspective changes throughout the story. There is Danny's storyline and then there's Sam, Tucker and Jazz's plotline. Anything that doesn't fit those perspectives are...well, let's just say they'll appear later ;)<strong>

**...is it so obvious that I love writing Dan's dialogue? ¬_¬;;; what's a story without villains, eh? :P**

**Till next time,**

**Psycho xx**


	5. Revelations

**AN: Hey guys, I'm back! I hope you're loving reading this, as much as I'm enjoying writing it! **

**Things are really heating up for Danny, here! Enjoy~**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Four - <span>Revelations

"Danny…?" She shouts to the heavens, pleading. The stars have no answer for her, they shine on; silent as always. "Danny? Danny…" Her footsteps trace circles on the floor in a constant circle, but her gaze is locked on the stars.

"Give it up, Sam. He's not coming back. Nocturne's taken him."

"Give up, Tuck? He's our friend! How can you even say that?" Her eyes are wild with misguided anger and grief, but void of any reason. "You _know _that Danny would do anything he could, if it was the other way around."

"I know, I know. I'm just saying that…Look, crying isn't going to bring him back." He passes her a handkerchief from one of his pockets. "You know I care, but we need to figure out where he is first." His feet clatter on the metal roof as he edges towards her. "We'll get him back, I promise." He whispers in her ear, hoping that he can make good of his vow and that it sounded resolute, despite his growing fears. He wraps her in his arms and she clutches on to him like a life-jacket. Tears stain his saffron coloured jumper. "We'll find him."

They stay like this for what seems like an eternity, but then Sam realised she'd broken one of the promises she made herself so long ago, one which had defined her and preserved her when she was innitially singled out as the 'Goth Freak' in school. She'd cried in front of someone.

"Don't you…e-ever tell anyone that y-you've seen me, like this!" she tries to sound serious, giving him a quick dead arm. He returns a weak smile. No, he won't tell.

"So, what are we going to tell Danny's parents? We need to come up with a cover for why he's missing." He was a techno-geek; he had logic and reasoning.

"Anything but the truth, of course! …We could say that we went round to mine and watched a few films. That, it got really late and you both ended up sleeping over?"

"Yeah. Plus, Danny's parents know that they're unwelcome round at your place, so it's not like they'd check up on us…but, just to make sure," he drew a cell phone out of his rucksack. "We'd be better off covering our tracks. You think you could leave a message on the Fenton's answering machine, Sam?"

"Why me? It's your phone."

"Because, we're supposed to be staying at your house. It'd sound strange coming from anyone else." He said seriously.

She took the phone from his hand and, after a sharp intake of breath, composed herself.

"Hi Mr and Mrs Fenton, sorry for calling so late…we know that you're out right now, but we just thought we'd let you know, for when you get back…Danny's staying over at mine with me and Tucker. It was starting to get late and we'd really got into our movie night. I hope that's okay…I gotta go, popcorn's ready…bye!" She let out a deep sigh as she ended the call. "Do you think they'll believe it."

"I hope so…let's head round to yours, in case they call…and we'll need to think about what to do next anyway." _After that,_ he thought, _well, after that, we'll just have to do what we can…_

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><p>The remaining lesson of the day had passed slowly, the hour stretched by Danny's growing apprehension, <em>How can I relax, knowing<em> he's_ back?_ He could barely pay attention throughout Tetslaff's class, which didn't help, when he was being used by Dash and Kwan as target practice, during dodge-ball. All in all, today hadn't been the best of days for him, but at least he could go home and forget it all.

Sam and Tucker hadn't waited for him today. The main entrance was deserted. How unusual, for them not to walk home together. _Not that I can blame them for heading off; Tetslaff made me do a lap of the track for being late._

The clouds above cried a shroud of tears, within minutes of him leaving Casper High. It was the second rainy day in a row and the damp weather did little to ease his mood. If anything it made him worse. He may have even considered it a bad omen, had he ever been superstitious. Then again, he never used to believe in ghosts. The town was emptied, from people rushing home, gracing his path as fleetingly as spirits and leaving him with silence and apprehension. The glow of the Fenton Works sign seemed more ostentatious, spread by the prism of raindrops; it bathed the house in a spectral green hue.

Danny stumbled through the front door and would have carried on up to his room without even a word to anyone else. He _was_ a teenager, after all. Today, something made him stop dead in his tracks. Something that shouldn't have been here, or exist at all.

"Well…the Ghostketeers never officially broke up, but…I suppose you could become a member, if there are any more large-scale attacks." Maddie Fenton beamed, trying to hide her own amazement that anyone had remembered their efforts against the Ghost Punk.

"That's the spirit, Maddie! The more the merrier, I say. Well, that and 'In fudge we trust'…but that's a different story…and I'm a man that likes his fudge" he rambled on.

"Thank you Mr and Mrs Fenton," the boy said, with his casual, self-assuredness, as he noticed Danny at the front door, his mouth agape in shock, "for what I'm sure will be a most _interesting_ experience" he smirked, looking right at Danny as he spoke.

"Anytime at all - " Maddie began, but was cut off.

"-You!" Danny exclaimed. "What are _you_ doing here?" he slammed the door behind him, throwing his coat to the floor.

"Is it such a crime for me to pass an interest in a classmate's life?" Dan barely maintained his nonchalance; he was doing what he set out to do: helping Danny ruin his own life. "I was just wondering how the world's leading ghost hunters can identify ghosts, whilst looking after a family."

_Is that a threat?_ Danny wondered.

"Oh, well, we do _more_ than identify them, Darren."Maddie said, gushing with enthusiasm for her research.

"Yeah. We've spent the last few weeks working on the Ghost Gauntlets. Then, we'll be able to fight ghosts mano en ghost-o…_while_ keeping them alive enough to examine, molecule by molecule." He added, after seeing his wife's look, which implied that it was a shame to let specimens go to waste.

"That sounds fascinating, doesn't it, Danny?" Dan glowered.

"Why are you really here, _Darren_? Only, I'm not going to be much company; I've got a lot of homework to do, so, if you don't mind…" he made a passing gesture at the door behind him.

"But Daniel, we haven't been set any assignments today. Anyway, I'm genuinely interested in what your parents think about Danny Phantom's _true_ identity; to see who they think he really is."

"You can't…" it comes out as barely a whisper. _This isn't how I meant for them to find out_, he panics.

"Now, Darren, you know that ghosts are dead. What use could a secret identity possibly be to a ghost? It'd make no sense, honest." Maddie prattled on, believing the thin veneer of pretence, that Dan had raised the matter with.

"I wonder…" he paused, seeing Danny's face light up with anger, mouthing 'Get out – Now!'. "You see I've heard rumours, unpleasant ones, about a ghost that can change its appearance to that of a human. But then, that is, if this _was_ true…would your ghost hunting equipment still detect him?"

"What are you suggesting?" Danny asked through gritted teeth. "There's no way that someone could be half ghost." In that moment of succeeding silence, he became all too aware of the painful passage of time. There was a ticking noise, too loud to come from the wall clock in the living room.

"Darren didn't say anything about people being half-ghost, Danny." Jack said in a strained voice, suspicion keeping his words taught and sharp, like the ping of an elastic band.

"Well, that's what he was _implying_…wasn't it?" the air around him seemed to grow warm, as if charged with electricity, or the presence of a coming storm.

"It's not like we'd be able to test your theory, anyway, Darren. Our systems have a funny way of working one minute and then failing the next." She paused, looking at her son's nervous expression. "Are you okay, Danny? You're looking a bit pale."

"Me? Of course I'm alright. Why wouldn't I be" he said in a quavering voice.

"If you're sure…why don't you go upstairs and rest for a while? I'll call you when dinner's ready." His mother insisted.

"I'll at least wait to see Dan leave." He answers.

"Okay, then. You were saying about malfunctions…would it not be possible that these 'errors' were the systems picking up on a ghost in human form?" Dan continued, determined to claim his victory.

"Well, that can't be right…"

"What's wrong, Maddie, dear? You can't believe this, can you? Because, we'd know if ghosts could pass as humans – no ghost makes a fool outta Jack Fenton."

"See, that's what I don't get…most of our equipment, seems to go faulty around Danny!" she laughed. "But that's not right. I mean, would you believe that he even comes up on the Fenton Finder…?" she asked Dan, innocently, but he doesn't reply. Instead, he is waiting, like a fox, for the penny to drop.

"Mum, Dad…I can explain!" Danny shouted, franticly. _He's done it. He's ruined everything!_

"It can't be…Our boy?" she asked no one in particular.

"What can't be, Sweet-cheeks?" Jack was one step behind, as usual.

"Our boy's Danny Phantom!" she shrieked. The moments stretched out like Dan's grin.

For several minutes, they stood there in varying degrees of shock. _Where do we go from here? _Danny couldn't help but wonder. With his secret exposed and all eyes on him, he felt obligated to say something; to try to explain and make the hurt go away. For his parent must, certainly, be annoyed with themselves for hunting their own son all this time, right?

"How could you Danny?" she asked. He could have asked his older self the same question.

"You're saying I _chose_ to be this way? You're my parents – what was I supposed to do? You're ghost hunters!" Silence.

"If you don't mind, Mrs Fenton, I'll take personal care of this, what would you call it…spook?" Mischief shone, brighter than any star, in those blood red eyes. They all but said: _mission accomplished_.

"The portal's in the basement – just, please, make sure to send him back where he belongs!" the stout, greying man gave an order, which Dan was all too keen to carry out.

He grabbed his younger self, locking Danny's arms behind his back and walked him towards the stairs like a police suspect. No matter how much Danny dug his feet into the carpet, it made no difference. Even if they _looked_ the same age now, Dan still had ten years more experience and the greater strength of the two of them.

"You can't do this! I'm your son!" he screamed. "I'm Danny _Fenton_ – your son!"

With cold resentment, the amber clad man turned to the boy. "You're no son of mine."

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><p><strong>AN: Whew, this one took a while to write. I'd had several different versions of it going round in my head for a while, so it took me ages to find one that'd work. <strong>

**I figured, Dan being the sadist that he is, it'd make sense for him to set Danny's parents against him. Plus, dream-logic demands that (in a nightmare) everyone turns away from you in repulsion...or is that just my nightmares? .**

**Anyway, I hope it's not too OOC. **

**Please let me know what you think,**

**Psycho xx**


	6. Dreaming Myself Awake

**AN: Danny floats in the Ghost Zone, defeated by his evil self, but that's the least of his problems, for now. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Five: Dreaming Myself Awake<span>

Danny woke in the Ghost Zone, but not in a part of it he'd seen before. It wasn't like he'd planned this visit though, he sighed, trying in vain to shake free of his bindings. Over and over, he kept playing that fateful scene in his head… '"You're no son of mine"' it stung. That's, perhaps why he was in no immediate hurry to return. He was a pariah now, exiled by his own family.

His evil self, had taken great delight in throwing him in the Ghost Zone, like mere rubbish. That was to be expected, of course. Dan had been the one who bound him, too, using his own powers to do the deed. Danny stared down at the ectoplasmic chains, that encircled his torso, like snakes of fluorescent tubing. _How did it come to this?_ He wonders. He doesn't try to alter his course and so passes through the foreign realm in human form, like a man, condemned.

_The Ghost Zone seems quiet tonight,_ he noted, trying to remember the last time he'd admired the beauty of the cascading green smoke and eternal nothingness. He couldn't. It was too distant a memory. It had been so long ago, since last he had looked around, that the sight of distant stars through the smoke, truly surprised him. _They look just like our stars…_he thought, realising just how parallel the two worlds really were; _only, they're in the wrong order_. He was right Orion shouldn't have been sat so close to Sagittarius and Sirius was nowhere near its constellation. He felt himself smile, the action of it seeming to strain his muscles; it had been a while since he'd truly felt at peace. _Even here, of all places, there's something familiar to me…but then, there ought to be. I am half-ghost, after all! The ghosts that live here must have once been human. Maybe that's why the stars shine here, too, to reassure them._ He could quite easily go to sleep and float endlessly, he believes that.

He believes that there is nothing outside this moment that could possibly be worth returning to. So he dreams…

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><p><em>The world seems tinged a blue hue, one that would be relaxing and peaceful, if it weren't for the fact that, sleeping would be a risk to great to take in here. <em>Don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep,_ I try to remind myself – falling asleep would only help _him. _The glass feels cold under my skin, but I know that, if I was able to go ghost, it would feel warm to me. Temperatures are harder to gauge when you're, technically, half-dead. _

Where the hell am I?_ I can't help but wonder… The container I'm in seems to stretch towards eternity and tapers in above my head to a system of pipes. I'm clearly not going to get any answers, as far as I can tell, I am alone. The world beyond this confinement is wrapped in darkness, there might be a light in the distance, but it's hard to make out…I think there are two of them actually. A pair of red lights._

_ A ticking noise suggests never-ending time, even in this darkness. It has a substantial resonance to it…it must be an enormous clock, I think. I hadn't noticed it until now, _how long had I been here?...Long enough to block out the sound as white noise._ I answered my own question, pessimistically. The rest of the world outside my glass cage, is silent, except for the occasional soft, moving groan (which, should belong to someone), that has no accompanying footsteps. _What is that? Something tells me, I don't want to know…

The ticking stops, dead.

_ There is nothing else to be heard or seen. Then the red lights draw closer. Closer still, until, whatever is approaching me, should start coming into view. I want to know – I need to know, _what _is_ this?_ My fatigue starts to set in, at the worst possible timing. Whatever is coming towards me seems to have an aura of menace…like the lingering presence of a half-remembered nightmare._

_ The soft blue light in my cell grows deeper, more intense. I can feel my eyes begin to droop. My gaze falls downward, to the floor. I think I can see wisps or tentacles, something that's blacker than the darkness around me. My eyes close. I'm past the point of fighting it. A voice commands me: "_Sleep"_ in such a soothing tone that I am forced to comply._

_ I drift back into the fabricated peace of dreams._

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><p>Yes, the Ghost Zone was far too quiet tonight, but although it made him uneasy, it had given him time to rest. He'd had trouble with going to sleep over the last few days, so he was grateful for whatever fragmented sleep he could get. The dreams were always the same though, he'd noticed. That is, if you could call them dreams; they seemed more like snapshots or flickers of something else. Not that it mattered.<p>

He floated on through the realm, thinking of nothing in particular. He had begun to think of his friends at one point, or at least he'd begun to think of Sam: the one girl that he could never predict. She was probably the only girl, other than his sister, who'd ever accept his dual-nature, that state of being neither one thing nor the other. She liked differences though, he smiled, yeah, Sam was good at dealing with weird stuff. _Speaking of girls…where had Jazz been? She wasn't home when it had all kicked off_¸ he winced at the memory. _It's probably better that way. I wouldn't have wanted Mum and Dad to think she was conspiring with Danny Phantom._ She'd had an interview with the university admissions team, he suddenly remembered…_and now she's got that mess to come home to_. He closed his eyes, but the images played behind his lids.

"Flying without due care and attention, Punk? That's against the rules." He'd floated into one of the many people he had hoped to avoid. In front of him loomed the imposing, yet well-dressed, skeletal prison warden of the Ghost Zone: Walker.

"Well, it really wasn't my intention." Danny laughed, nervously. "You see, I'm in a bit of a bind."

"Ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law. Justice moves swiftly to repeating offenders; remember that." The jaw bones could not bear a grin, lacking the muscles to do so, but it was quite clear that it was spoken with triumphant glee. Walker had his main reoffender in his grasp, wrapped up like a present. He would have thanked whoever was responsible for this fortuitous circumstance, yet no one was there. A_ good Samaritan, clearly,_ he thought, _for them, a good deed is its own reward, I'd wager._ "I'm taking you in, Ghost Child, and this time, you _will_ serve your sentence in my prison."

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><p><strong>AN: So how was that? Danny's problems are truly going from bad to worse! But then, that's how nightmares work, isn't it? I hope it's clear enough that the middle section (the first person chunk) is still Danny, just with a different perspective and spatial setting. Let's see if anyone can guess what that section's about ;) I'm not planning on revealing it to you myself for a few more chapters, personally.<strong>

**Don't forget to review,**

**Psycho xx**


	7. Plan B

**AN: Psycho here with a new chapter of Pesadillas! Sorry this one took so long, I just wanted to make sure I'd got the characterisation right, so that it sounded like Jazz and not totally OOC. I hope it worked! .**

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><p><span>Chapter 6: Plan B<span>

Danny had always been the more easy-going of the two of them, Jazz knew that. He would often arrange to meet up with his friends the night before an exam, or an assignment deadline. It was just the way things were: she was the conscientious one with dreams of academia; he was the younger brother who put his friends above all else. That's exactly what he was doing now, she sighed, pouring herself another glass of orange juice. Surely, two days was a bit long for a sleepover. He hadn't even returned for clean clothes! Something was up, she thought…_but then what if I'm just being over-protective, like he always says?_ She decided to put it out of her mind for a while, or at least until the evening. He _has_ to come back tonight; he has school tomorrow, she realised. She took the glass up to her room, determined to study for the upcoming end of term exams, even if they weren't for another month.

It was well past tea time and Danny still hadn't returned. Her father was busy tinkering down in the lab, so Jazz had volunteered to help her mother with the washing up, she didn't dare think of what would become of the leftovers if her dad was in charge of it. She shuddered at the very thought, _probably the same thing that happened to the turkey last Christmas_. She smirked, recalling how the ectoplasmic green poultry had begun wielding cutlery, as though under the impression it was a ninja.

"Did Danny say when he'd be back, Mum?" the washing up bowl fell silent, as Maddie Fenton considered the question.

"No. Sam just said he was staying over." She went back to the baking tray in her water wrinkled hands.

"Doesn't that bother you? I mean, he's just gone off and not told you when he'll be back."

"Oh, Jazz, dear. You shouldn't worry so much. He'll be fine; he's at Sam's." she smiled. "It's just what kids do," Jazz looked at her, reproachfully. "Well, most kids, anyway."

"But Mum, it's Monday tomorrow. Aren't you the slightest bit worried that he's just gonna ditch school." She was beginning to sound hysterical now, her tone sounded whiney, even to her.

"You and I both know that Danny wouldn't do that. What's got you so worked up? It's not like it's the first time he's stayed at a friend's." Jazz shifted uneasily, trying to come up with a reason. Her mother was right; it wasn't the first time, but not because he had lots of films to watch. Danny would often stay out with his friends, resting after a ghost had attacked him. _What if, he got in too deep and got hurt? That'd explain why Sam called here, instead of him._

"Oh, um, no reason. I'm just worried for his grades, that's all. If he keeps having all these late nights, or skipping studying, then he's only going to struggle when it gets to the exams." She tried to exude nonchalance. Tried and failed.

"Well, okay then, dear. Just don't think that Danny's your responsibility. He's got to learn to live with whatever mistakes he makes – you can't protect him forever. It's down to him, how well he does." She saw Jazz's face slip into unease, "Oh, he's so lucky to have such a caring sister."

_She's right…but then, Danny needs to realise that he can't be responsible for everything too. That he needs to take care of himself, for our sakes, if nothing else._ Jazz thought, with growing unease, as images flashed through her head of every close scrape he'd been in. _That's the problem though - he doesn't live with his mistakes. He never forgives himself…that's why he doesn't talk about what happened the other month._

"You know when I was your age, Alicia and I were always at each other's throats. I'd have killed to have what you kids have…" Maddie prattled on.

"Yeah," Jazz said, somewhat detachedly, to no one in particular.

What else could she do without sounding like she was invading her brother's privacy? She tried to refrain from interfering, but she couldn't help but go through all the things that could possibly happen to a teenage superhero…even a one that was half ghost.

It got to about ten at night, the time that she'd usually consider going to sleep for school, when she realised that her worries had wrapped themselves around her mind in a vice like grip, getting harder to ignore with every minute. Her subconscious screamed at her to take action, or that was how she rationalised it, at least. Within minutes her mobile was in her hand and she was jabbing numbers into the handset. She felt a proud of her own foresight for copying Danny's friends' numbers to her SIM, even if the feeling was fleeting and tinged by guilt.

"Sam? Hey, um, is Danny there?" she tried not to sound suspicious.

"…_Danny? He's, erm, well, he's…" _Jazz thought she could hear her talking to someone in the background, "_Danny's out at the moment, getting pizza with Tucker. What's wrong?"_

"Sam, I…" she began.

"_How'd you get my number anyway?"_ Sam interrupted, somewhat annoyed.

"I, er, that's not important. How is he?"

"_He's fine, Jazz. Honest."_ Something about the younger girl's voice made it sound as though she wasn't convinced herself.

"Really? Then why is it, he's not come home once? You and I both know that's not normal for Danny." She thought herself to be the authority on her little brother. _But what if Mum's right. Maybe it's nothing. They might actually be having a good time and I'm probably being too intrusive…_

"_I…He..." _There seemed to be a lot of noise on the other end of the line. _"Jazz," _the goth girl's voice was full of solemnity now. "_He's gone. We don't know where he is, but Nocturne's taken him… Jazz? You still there?"_ The phone was silent for just a moment. "_I'm sorry. We tried. We've been trying to come up with a plan all weekend…hoping that we wouldn't have to tell your parents that he's missing. We didn't want anyone to worry – that'd be the last thing Danny'd want to come back to…But, and I hate to say it, we need your help, Jazz. So, please…"_

"Where are you now?"

"_Tucker and I are at mine…Does that mean you'll help us?"_

"Of course. He _is_ my brother, Sam." She replied, scathingly. _How could they let him be taken? _She asked herself, but then brought her emotions back in check. _No, they didn't _let_ him get taken. They probably couldn't have stopped him._ "I'll be right there." She hung up.

* * *

><p>The tension between the two girls had settled down since they had hung up, little over an hour ago. Even so, the air was uneasy between them, as they sat in the Manson's games room.<p>

"I say we check the old mattress factory. If Nocturne used it as a base once, it'd make sense that he'd return to it, right? He'd already have it set up from back then." Tucker argued, after what seemed like an age of silence.

"No. That's too predictable, surely. He'd know that we'd look there – where else would we think of looking? We've only come across him the once, but that was enough to know that he's smarter than that, Tucker." Jazz countered, smiling inwardly at the practical uses of her psychology class.

"Then where would _you_ start to look?" Sam asked exasperatedly. It seemed they'd been going over the same circular argument for the last half hour and she was sick of hearing it.

"All the ghosts we've ever come across have had a lair in the Ghost Zone, right? So we could just…" she trailed off.

"Yeah, but when Danny faced Nocturne, it was in our world. We don't even know where he came from, so how could we hope to find his lair? The Ghost Zone stretches on forever – we don't have time to wander aimlessly, hoping we find it by accident!" Tucker spoke sense, they knew it; they just hadn't wanted to know how hopeless the situation really was.

"Then maybe you're right, Tucker."

"I am? But you just said Nocturne wouldn't go back there." he said sceptically.

"What choice do we have?" Jazz asked, looking down at her feet, forlornly. "What do you think, Sam? It's your vote, seeing as…well, you know."

"I say…something's better than nothing. Even if it's unlikely, we ought to give it a try."

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><p><strong>AN: Hope that was okay for you guys. This is basically Sam, Tucker and Jazz's plotline, in case that wasn't clear. This and the chapter I'm writing were originally meant to be one long chapter, so consider the next one as a continuation :)<strong>

**Psycho xx**


	8. Resolve

**AN: Hey guys! Sorry for the wait with this one, I've been really busy with assignments from uni. ^^;**

**Here's chapter 7 of Pesadillas and I promise that the next chapter will be back to Danny's plotline. :D**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Seven: Resolve<span>

Sunday night had passed and with it came a new found sense of determination: they had an echo of an idea as to where Danny might be. It may not have been a definite idea, but, even if it was unlikely, it was a start. They had decided to look into it the next day, as soon as they had finished school for the day. Sam and Tucker dragged their feet as they made their way to the car park, looking for Jazz's car. It had been a long day, as Mondays always are, made even longer by their impatience and need for answers. It would be a strange day to confront an enemy, Sam thought. The sun had finally broken through the clouds, dispelling the rain that still clung to the pavements and the air was laced with that fresh dampness. They didn't say anything while they looked for the car; they probably knew what the other one was thinking without asking: _Please let us find Danny. Please say he's okay._ It was like a prayer or an affirmation to no one in particular, for neither of them had believed in God since Danny's accident – how could they when their half-ghost friend had single handedly corrupted His design, making himself something _other_ than God's image…not to mention that the idea of ghosts threw doubts over the possibilities of Heaven. Even without this belief, they still begged Fate to let them find him in the first place they looked.

"Sam! Tucker! Over here!" Jazz called, pressing down on the horn, waving at them with her free hand from behind the wheel. Sam face-palmed _could she have been any more conspicuous?_ The red-head's cheerful demeanour was completely at odds with the reputation Sam tried to keep; she preferred not to draw unnecessary attention to herself.

They jumped in the back seat of the used, burgundy, Renault Clio, cringing, as always, at the sticker on the boot, which read: 'Have you hugged your inner child today?'

"Hey Jazz." Tucker beamed, glad that they could finally get going. "You remember to bring that stuff from your parents' lab?"

"It's all in the boot. That nightmare's not gonna know what hit him!" She smirked, moving the gear stick from reverse and into first as she pulled out of the space.

"Erm, his name's Nocturne, Jazz, remember? Besides, it'd be too easy to mix him up with the Fright Knight's horse if you called him that!" Sam criticised.

"You call him what you want." Jazz said in mock defeat, they'd had this argument too many times before for her to give it any real concern. The rest of the journey had passed in silence, filled only by the sound of fresh rain drilling into the windscreen of the car.

The tyres crunched over course gravel as they came to a halt. Near the docks, the rainclouds looked to stretch on forever as a contrast to the emerging sunshine, which was now consuming the other side of town. Slamming the doors, they got out.

"Were at the right place, aren't we?" Sam got no answer. "Jazz?" she turned to the older girl, who looked the very image of shock, with her hands raked through her hair. She was worried, Sam thought; it looked like Jazz was torn between disbelief and fear_. In a way, she could be a double for that Edvard Munch painting._

"According to my PDA's GPS, this is where the factory should be." Tucker said quietly. "Where it was, anyway."

"Jazz, are you okay?" she paused. "We'll just have to look somewhere else. You said it yourself: Nocturne was too smart to use the same place twice. So, we'll just have to try again." Sam tried to be optimistic, even if it left a bitter taste in her mouth. _It's just disappointing, that's all. Like anything's ever that easy, though!_

"I'm fine, honest." Jazz said in a small voice, looking up at the clouds, looming above them. She began to pick her way across the scattered remains of the factory, as if looking for hope.

Tucker and Sam watched from a distance, unable to find the words to make things right again. The techno junky was busy typing into his PDA on the town's wi-fi network. Anyone would think he was obsessed with that machine, Sam thought.

"Sam, look at this." He said in a hushed voice, waving the gadget in front of her. "The mattress factory was condemned not long after we faced Nocturne and was taken down just a few weeks later…but there are two different rumours about it." Sam looked at him quizzically. "Well, one article says it was a freak lightning storm, the other says that no one would invest in it because of rumours it was haunted."

"That makes sense, _I guess_. Nocturne's devices used a lot of the town's power supplies, so the mayor probably tried to get rid of the ghostly gossip by saying that it was a storm." Sam deduced. "We should tell Jazz and try and come up with another plan then" she sighed, frustratedly. _So we weren't even close to finding Nocturne! Dammit!_

* * *

><p>It was Friday before they'd come up with any new ideas. Being sent straight back to the beginning, empty handed and without a clue, was more than annoying. Yet Jazz had practically radiated happiness, when she met up with Sam and Tucker on the way from school that day. She'd seen them walking down the road and sprinted after them.<p>

"I know how we can find Danny!" she exclaimed.

"What? How?" Tucker asked. Sam was just as sceptical as he was. They'd tried all that they could think of, not that there had been much to go off.

"Clockwork." She said the name as though it was the answer to everything. "Clockwork will help us."

"No offence, Jazz, but what does Clockwork have to do with any of this?" Sam asked pointedly.

"He's helped us before and I'm sure he'll do it again!" she said defensively. She calmed down a smidge, catching a glance from the other two. "Clockwork was ordered by the Observants to take Danny as his personal responsibility after what happened with his evil self, right?"

"So you're saying that he's been keeping tabs on Danny? That's both creepy…and helpful." He smiled weakly.

"Clockwork's the master of time!" the younger girl's voice shone with epiphany. "Tucker, don't you see? He'll know what happened to Danny and where Nocturne's taken him! _He said _he knows everything!"

"Exactly." Jazz chimed. "The whole of time's his domain and that's _everything_, right? So if anyone can help us, it's him."

They stood outside Tucker's front door, as if they feared the realisation would be taken as a toll for entering. After a few weighty seconds, Tucker opened the door and led them up to his room, waiting until they were away from his parents before continuing.

"There's only one problem." Tucker began, on a serious note. "Danny's the only one who has a map of the Ghost Zone and that's on his computer…He's probably changed his password since last time you hacked it, Jazz."

"Hey! That was only because I wanted to help" She pouted. "…not that it was hard to guess, anyway." She smirked at her brother's unrealistic fantasies of a Paulina _Fenton_.

"Can't you just hack it, Tuck?" Sam asked, desperately. _I know we're supposed to respect his privacy, but this is different! He needs our help. _Her eyes burned into his, exhorting their will.

"Ugh, okay." He said, abandoning his morals for the moment. "I'll set up a remote access override. It shouldn't be too hard. He has a desktop sharing account online." He realised his mumblings were wasted on the girls, but it reassured him.

"Okay, I've got it!" He called the girls over. Within a few minutes, the hacking software had downloaded most of Danny's documents to his PC.

"Great! Now we just need to find a way of taking the Spectre Speeder without your parents knowing, Jazz." Sam said, hope somewhat restored.

"Leave that one to me." She spoke with confidence, but the truth was, that she hadn't got a clue how she was going to get her parents out of the house for a day.

"So when are we going to do this?" Tucker asked.

"The sooner the better. Danny's already been gone a week – the teachers might be okay, thinking that he's sick for a while longer; but I doubt it'll be long before the Fentons get worried. Honestly, I'm surprised that they're still okay with it." The goth girl was eager to get her friend back.

"They _are_ worried. I've just been telling them that Danny needed some space to study." The other two looked fit to burst with laughter. "It's not like he gets much peace and quiet at home." She had a point. Even when Danny wasn't fighting ghosts, he still had to worry about his parents' latest contraption.

"How about we do it tomorrow? If it's a Saturday then I'm sure that you'll be able to find something for them to do, Jazz." Tucker suggested, spinning round on his chair.

"Okay. Tomorrow it is." She smiled, showing outward confidence, but feeling none of it.

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><p><strong>AN: So, what do you think? Please review - your reviews are my motivation to write!<strong>

**Btw, in case anyone was wondering, pesadillas is the Spanish word for nightmares. ^^;**

**Psycho xx**


	9. Jail Bait

**AN: Sorry for the short chapter, guys. I just came to a natural pause with this one and, after looking at how it flowed with the next one I'm writing, I decided that it was best to have them separated. Like I said, we're back on Danny's version of events again. This, going back to my dream logic, is a slow chapter. My reason being that in dreams (or at least in my dreams) the more dramatic the event the faster it happens; the more permanent the longer it feels. Plus, time is weird in dreams, anyway! :P Hope that clears up a few things. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom. **

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><p><span>Chapter Eight: Jail Bait<span>

The young ghost boy woke, groggy, with a vague recollection of a dream. It was always the same one – something about being trapped. There was always a sense of urgency to them as well, as though time was running out or that something was very wrong indeed. Sitting up on the bench he sighed, gazing at the ceiling, trying to stretch out his stiff back. In the year he'd spent in Walker's jail, nothing had changed. He remembered how at first he'd tried to fight back against it all, raging like the caged animal he'd become…but all things held in captivity, eventually lose their spirit, become broken, knowing that this confinement has become their everything.

Sometimes, Danny thought he would blend in with the forever dripping sink and rigid bench – the sole furnishings of his cell. Had it really been a year? It was hard to gauge time in the Ghost Zone at the best of times, but the more he asked himself this question, the longer it felt since he'd last seen a familiar face. He grimaced as he stood, muscles and bone clicking and cramping after hours of inactivity. His footsteps always sounded too loud, upon the bare stone floor, he hated that. The water gushed out of the tap, with the unrestrained force of a waterfall. There was no way to properly control the flow of the streaming tap; it was either on or off, but it was certain that you'd get drenched. He splashed the icy water over his face, trying in vain to wake himself up, but he felt weary at the best of times after so many months in the same room. He swore as he felt the black striped uniform cling to his chest and quickly turned the tap off. In the mirror over the sink, he saw just how that year had changed him. Once bright eyes now looked empty, their luminosity dulled, as the growing shadows beneath them spread. His hair hung limp over those haunting blue eyes. _I never thought I'd look this ghostly in human form…talk about irony!_ He scowled, watching the lines appear on his face in the cracked mirror.

A knock at the door distracted him from his silent inward torture.

"Phantom. Dinner." Came the crisp and contrite command. The guard slipped the tray of suspiciously glowing food, through the panel at the foot of the door. Danny was about to grab it and quietly eat the meagre portion on his make-shift bed, as usual, but something dawned on him. It was a question that ought to have been obvious; something he ought to have realised when he first came here.

"Wait!" Danny called. "Am I the only person here?" The question sounded stupid once he'd said it out loud and in the extended silence, he would have been sure that the guard had simply ignored him and floated off on some other duty. Then he heard the grate slide back on its rusted track, revealing the ruddy eyes of the ghost through the door.

"This is but one block of Walker's prison, ghost boy. But, you are the only one in this ward."

"What!" Danny exclaimed. "Are you sure?" _Such a silly question_, he mentally reprimanded himself – _that ghost works for Walker; of course he knows!_

His guard was silent, taken aback by the boy's naivety. The warden had told the guards against unnecessary communication with the halfa, surely having broken this rule, he'd already be in trouble, so a little more wouldn't hurt. The prisoner was little more than a child…

"The warden thought it best to give the infamous reoffender a ward to himself." He paused. Why was he saying all this? Something about the teen invoked a shadow of sympathy the guard had not felt since he was alive. "You don't want to know what the other convicts would do, if they only knew that the Ghost Zone's greatest traitor was here…Be thankful then, that Walker sees solitary confinement as an even greater punishment." He shifted uneasily, trying to sound ominous, as was in his job description.

"Heh, I know what you mean…!" Danny sank down to sit on the floor by the door, the chill of the metal clawed its way through the thin cotton of his uniform in a way that felt familiar. He stayed like that, wrapped in a shroud made from their stagnant unfinished conversation. Eventually, he felt the chill of his ghost sense pass; the guard had left without a further word.

The raven haired teen could only guess at what was happening back at home, now that his parents had discovered his secret. No amount of gazing at the ceiling would help him find any answers, though, he believed it helped.

By the time what felt like an hour had passed, he'd decided that his parents had probably taken Dan in as his replacement, or at the very least as an ally; that Sam and Tucker were never going to find him, there was no hope holding on to that hope after a year, anyway. But what about Jazz? Did she even know? Maybe his parents had made up an excuse for his absence, so they wouldn't have to admit to the shame of having had a ghost under their own roof. At least, without Danny Phantom, the general public would have exactly what they always wanted – a world without the ghost boy. His friends might even be better off, too, he realised. Without having to worry about an unreliable friend or ghosts, they'd be able to live a normal life for the first time since the accident. All in all, he couldn't say he blamed them for not looking for him…not any more, anyway. A year of quiet reflection had only taught him to let things go and just accept things for what they were.

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><p><strong>AN: So how was that? I know it's all a bit angsty, but I just figured that after spending a "year" in prison, Danny would be a little depressed, or at least have a more pessimistic outlook on the world. My original plan for this chapter had a smidge of humour in it (would you believe that, coming from me? lol) I had it in my head that Danny would joke that Walker was compensating for something by having such a big prison...Shrek reference if you were wondering. But then, I realised it didn't really fit in with the mood of the chapter. Still, I hope it was okay for you, even if it was short.<strong>

**Psycho x **


	10. Esperanto

**AN: Hi, guys and gulls, I'm back with a new chapter for you all! **

**Previously, we saw that Danny had become a prisoner in Walker's jail since he'd been thrown into the Ghost Zone. Meanwhile, Sam and Co. have been looking for ****him in the real world, with little luck. This chapter is Danny-centric, following his time in prison. Enjoy~**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Nine: Esperanto<span>

Danny had fallen asleep that night with the guard's words still echoing inside his mind. His thoughts felt like a raging bee hive, which he was only barely keeping a lid on. _I'm the only one here…_ repeating it parrot fashion, made it feel like the very opposite of a lifeline, as though he was drowning in the abyss rather than rising from it. He hadn't moved from the spot near the door since he had been left alone with his thoughts. In that cramped spot, with his back resting on the metal door, he remembered that the dream had been different. It was still the same dream, but this time there had been more to it.

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><p>It's getting harder to come back from it now…each time that he puts me under, it seems the spell grows stronger. So how long will it be before I am trapped there forever?<em> I ask myself. I dread to find the answer. For now, I am back. The blue glow around my prison has dimmed, so I doubt he has remembered to maintain my sedatives – the way I've been, I bet he didn't need to!<em>

_The bolt I'd been toying with last time seems to have gone unnoticed, not that it means much. I had barely managed to loosen it. I just feel too weak. I haven't been able to go ghost since I got here (his cage prevents me from doing so), maybe it's all that unspent ecto-energy that's keeping me going? _Never mind that now,_ I tell myself, _I need to get out of here, before…_ Well, it's best not thinking about that. _

_Kneeling down, or as far as I'm able to, I can just about reach the bolt. The screw feels icy between fingers that don't seem to work quite as well as I'd have hoped. I can't help but get mad at myself. _Of all the luck in the world! There's no way I can rely on anyone else to find me – we've never been here before!_ So, my fate – my life – is in my own hands. But those hands never used to look so wasted! I can see the edges of bones rippling the skin as I work at my escape. If the screw moved at all, it's hardly worth mentioning._

I could easily give up, _I realise, _but then, that's what he wants._ If I stay asleep, he only gets stronger. The longer I sleep, the weaker I become. _But, why? Why come up with this? Of all the dreams to give me…I know he wants me to suffer, but how would he know about _that_ – about what I could have been. That timeline's been altered…_ but even if it doesn't happen anymore, it's still on my mind; it's still possible. Sam didn't think so though. No one else seemed to give it a further thought, but then, they probably think that's it; it's over and done with. _They're probably just trying to reassure me…they always say I need to go easy on myself. _With a sigh, I slouch back, leaning on the freezing cold glass, trying to concentrate on staying awake, despite my growing fatigue. _Growing fatigue? That can't be good.

_I look up to a pair of red eyes and I know what's coming. Nocturne stands before me, an arm outstretched and irradiating the blue energy of his narcotics._

"_Wait!" I try to sound authoritative, but I just sound exhausted. "Why him? Why put…Dan in my dream?" I hate to say the name: it's like acknowledging that he could still exist. _

"_Dan? Ah, the older boy with the ghost powers? I can assure you, he was not part of my original design. However, if your subconscious is willing to punish you further, I am certainly not going to stop it." His eyes narrow in a smug grin._

"_Design? You planned all this? The dream – everything?" I try to stifle a yawn, but the sleepwalkers behind him are doing the same. _Why is yawning so contagious?

_He remains silent, but for his one command, "Now, sleep."_

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><p>A loud ripping sounded from the other side of his cell, somewhere in the half-lit darkness. It belonged to what looked like a black hole or a tear in reality itself. Through the scratch, hanging in mid-air, Danny could have sworn he saw the inner mechanisms of a giant clock.<p>

The lycanthrope stalked through the wrench in space and time, seemingly disorientated. Yes, it was Wulf, a ghost of the werewolf kind, that had emerged into that dank prison cell in the Ghost Zone. After a quick glance around the room, his eyes locked onto Danny's groggy half-dreaming (or is that half-_waking_) form, in the gloom by the door.

"Why is it you are here, my friend?" the grizzled looking beast spoke in English, with a perplexed frown upon his, already harsh, features.

"…Wulf?" the boy stirred, "shouldn't you be breaking _out_ of jail?" His attempt at humour washes over the trans-dimensional traveller.

"This is no time for jokes, young halfa. You need to hurry and wake up!" Wulf's voice carries an edge of panicked haste, reverberating around the room and his green eyes dart around the room like emerald beetles.

"Wake up? But I am awake…" Danny shoots him a quizzical look, _but even so, something's not right here… _"Wulf?"

"Yes?" he grumbles.

"You're not speaking Esperanto." Somehow saying this most obvious of truths aloud, allows the illusion to fade (but not disappear entirely), like a penny dropping through glass, the shards would still remain. "I didn't know you spoke English – it would have made things a lot easier if you'd told me before!"

"I believe you are mistaken, child. I cannot speak anything other than Esperanto."

There is a moment's pause, while both parties puzzle out their confusion. _If Wulf says he's speaking Esperanto, then how can I only hear English? Is that even possible?_

"Why's that?" Danny asked, stalling for time, as he walked over to the bench on the other side of the room.

"It is the condition upon which I remain here: my purpose. I am but what remains of a failed attempt to unite the world. I am Ludwig Zamenhoff." Wulf looked visibly more relaxed now, but still clearly anxious. _What's got him all on edge?_ Danny couldn't help but wonder.

"The creator of Esperanto…?" He would, any other time, go on to think about the implications of this, but the longer he talks to Wulf, the more his head begins to ache as though from a migraine. Instead he asks; "Why are you here? Not meaning to sound rude or anything, but I can't imagine Walker's prison would be on your list of places to go, Wulf." He motions for Wulf to sit beside him; the more he sees the creature pacing the floor, the more agitated he himself feels.

"Have you not noticed anything amiss in this world, Danny Fenton? Is there nothing that seems strange to you lately?" His tone betrays the surprise, which his stern face would withhold.

"Well, I haven't been able to go ghost for a long time…and, now that you mention it, I do seem to have had an unbelievable amount of bad luck lately – even by my standards!" His laugh has a bitter note to it. Dark humour doesn't suit the boy, Wulf thought to himself.

"It's almost too terrible to be true, is it not?" Wulf hates having to be so careful with what he says, but he has been warned: Danny Fenton has to figure this one out for himself, if all is to go to plan.

"Yeah, like one hell of a nightmare!" Danny jokes, but his off-hand remark draws epiphany to him…_What if I had it completely the wrong way round? What if this those dreams I've been having we're of me waking up? That'd explain why they're always so consistent, wouldn't it?_

The pain that has been wracking his head for the last half hour suddenly intensifies. The boy rakes his skinny hands through his hair, as if more pressure on his head would reduce the agony he's in. Yet, it is with suffering that all truths are revealed. Images flash behind his creased lids of star gazing and a scream; of an icy cold prison that seemed like a glass coffin; and the one person responsible for it all: Nocturne. Once all the lost moments have returned to him, the pain dies away, as does his own naivety.

"None of this is real…" Danny slowly, hesitantly speaks the truth. "It was all just a trick – just a nightmare." He looks over to Wulf, whose eyes show only pity and sympathy for the child who's been deceived by his own mind. "So what now? Don't people usually wake up, once they know it's a dream? Or am I supposed to be able to control it – I mean, this is _my _dream, right?"

"I do not know, young one. Have you perhaps heard of something called _lucid dreaming_?" The werewolf looks up through the bars on the cell's window at the stars, which shine in the Ghost Zone, whether it is night or day.

"…That was in one of Sam's books, I think" he digs deep for those distant memories, "It's where you can control your dreams, right?"

"Indeed." Wulf turns to give him a reassuring smile, with all his teeth in it.

"So is that what'll happen? I'll be able to control it all?"

"It is but one theory." Wulf cannot say anymore; he wasn't told anymore on the subject.

"Then why can't I go ghost?" Danny, all but shouts, after a few minutes of silent concentration on his part.

"Reality is only what we perceive it to be and, from what I have seen, what we believe becomes a lens to our reality." The ghost hopes that it's vague enough to count as a hint, but clear enough for the boy to understand. Wulf hopes the boy recovers. That is his nature, after all, it is what his language was all about – one man's hope.

"So…let me get this straight. You're saying that the reason I can't change is because I've believed it's not possible for too long? Is that what _he's_ done?" Danny asked, snapping Wulf out of his musings.

"Nocturne's spell is a powerful one, because of his nature as The Master of Dreams, Morpheus. We believe it was his plan to make you think yourself utterly defenceless. It is illusion, only. That is all dreams are: imagination animated." _The boy catches on quicker than usual…it is a shame we can't always talk so fluidly together, _Wulf smiles sadly at this thought.

The halfa gives his traditional war cry: Going Ghost! _Perhaps he needs the bravado in these uncertain times._

Looking down at himself, Danny could see the hazmat suit had returned, as had his outer radiance, marking him as one of the dead once again.

"It-It worked!" He smiles triumphantly, flying from the bench over to the mirror above the wash basin. The moment he does, the corners of his mouth drop into a frown once more. "How?" he gasps. "Why is my reflection still Danny _Fenton_?" He looks over to the sagely wolf.

"I do not know all the answers, friend. Though, if I had to guess, I would say that it is how Nocturne has been maintaining your self-doubts." He says, looking the teen in the eyes, with utmost sincerity.

"So that's how it was then? I could change all along, but didn't realise it? He needed me to think I was powerless so I'd remain under his control…" his brow becomes more lined with deeper furrows. "He is so asking for it!" he growls.

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><p><strong>AN: Just in case some of you didn't know, Esperanto means one who hopes, in Zamenhoff's language, Esperanto. Oh, and Morpheus is the name of the Greek god of sleepdreams, which I thought would be fitting for Nocturne.**

**What do you guys think? Let me know, 'kay?**

**Psycho x**


	11. Broken Time

**AN: Sorry it's been a while, guys! I've been kind of busy lately. Forgive me? :3**

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><p><span>Chapter 10: Broken Time<span>

"You sure you're okay with this, Jazz? I mean, you don't think your parents will notice something's up?" Sam asked, worriedly, drumming her plum painted finger nails across the Fenton's kitchen table.

"It'll be fine – I promise." The older girl frowned, looking at the doubt on Sam and Tuckers faces. "Everything's gonna go to plan. Why shouldn't it?"

"Well, you might be able to fool your dad, Jazz, but what about your mum? …I just don't know whether it's the best idea." Tucker grumbled.

"It's the only plan. At least this way, we might be able to keep my parents from getting the authorities involved about Danny's disappearance…Just, trust me, okay?"

"Well…okay." He still didn't look convinced, though. There was no time to reassure them further. The front door slammed shut, clattering in its hinges: the Fentons were home.

"My parents! You guys need to go – _now_!" Jazz said, ushering them towards the cellar steps and closing the lab door behind them. "Good luck. Sam, Tucker…" she whispered after their receding footsteps.

"Jazz, honey, we're home. Did anyone call?" Maddie called from the living room, hanging up their coats. Jazz panicked. Quickly, she adjusted the black wig Sam had given her that morning. _It'll have to do_, she thought, suddenly unsure of herself now her plans were becoming reality.

"Mum? Dad?" Jazz asked, trying to match her brother's voice, as she left the kitchen.

"Son?" Her father spoke through a mouthful of fudge. At this Maddie looked up from the Fenton Weasel, which she'd been trying to unblock.

"Danny!" Her voice was high in her surprise. "I thought we'd lost you!" She spared no time in going over to her 'son' and giving him the hug she'd been saving for the last two weeks. Then, holding him at arm's length, "You don't want to know how close we were to calling the police, mister!"

Jazz's eyes fell to the floor; pretending to be her brother only made her feel worse about having to lie to them…but then, doing so made them so much happier – how could that be so bad? "I know, mum, but Jazz and the guys told you I was okay, right? I just…well, I needed some time to myself, you know?" She gave a small, sad smile. _That's what Danny would say, I think. He wouldn't want mum and dad to be worried._ "Dad?" she noticed the man hadn't said a thing, since he saw her. It was unlike her father to be lost for words.

The broad man stood at the front door, peeling another piece of fudge from its wrapper, picking at the residue it left on his fingers, before speaking to his _son_. "Just don't do it again, okay? You got your mother and I all worried – anything could have happened to you! But, for now, you're grounded." He mussed up the teen's hair, as he headed towards the kitchen. Jazz anxiously smoothed it back in place, hoping the man hadn't realised it was a wig.

"Now, Jack, Danny just got back home. Don't you think you can leave grounding him until tomorrow?" Realising what she said, Maddie checked herself by adding, "But, don't think you're getting away scott-free, son – we're both still very mad at you." Her relief was tangible. Even when she was _scolding_ her son, she still had a smile on her face and her voice.

"I know, mum. It's okay, I understand, but can we at least spend the day together? I haven't seen you guys in a while." Jazz winced, noticeably, hearing her voice stray into her usual feminine tones. "That's if it's okay with you…" she dropped her pitch quickly, hoping they hadn't noticed.

"You sure you're okay, Danny-boy? You sound like you've got a frog in your throat" Jack laughed with gusto. Secretly, Jazz was glad to hear it; neither of them had smiled much lately. Maddie grimaced at her husband's poor attempt at humour.

"Uh, yeah. I, erm, guess I've still not got rid of that cold" Jazz laughed nervously. _Concentrate!_ She reprimanded herself. _Come on, guys, you gotta find Danny and soon. I don't know how long I can keep this up._

Jazz felt a cool hand against her forehead, still wet from the rain outside. "Hmmm, you don't have a fever…and your glands aren't up." She said, feeling the girl's throat for her tonsils.

"I'm fine, honestly. I'm home now, that's what matters, right?"

"Well, yeah, but something seems different…" Jazz's mother clicked her fingers, "You look taller!"

"I, erm…puberty?" Jazz faltered.

"That's right – Danny's a growing young man!" Jack beamed, radiating pride as vibrantly as the orange of his jumpsuit.

Jazz felt like burying her face in her hands. No wonder Danny avoided their parents when they showed up at school – it was like they were determined to embarrass him!

"Hmmm, I guess you're right. To think my little boy's growing up so fast." She sighed. _Far too fast,_ she thought.

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><p>Sam and Tucker's trip into the Ghost Zone would have gone a lot easier, had they not run into Klemper just as they went past Skulker's lair. The lonely ghost had shrieked at them to be his friend, and it seemed nothing short of a miracle that the hunter hadn't gone over to see what the racket was about. Sam would have been lying if she said she didn't feel ashamed of having to fire a blast of plasma-peach lip balm at the spook. <em>Danny's all that matters at the moment. We can't afford time for delays – Jazz can't lie to her parents forever. They'll figure it out sooner or later.<em> Ethics would have to take a back seat.

"You sure we're going the right way, Tucker?" Sam bit her lip, nervously, as she saw two Victorian ghost pass by her window. Luckily, they either hadn't seen the Spectre Speeder, or they weren't interested, _Danny's got so many enemies out here, I'm amazed they haven't come after us yet._ She shifted uneasily in her seat.

"Yeah. It's definitely this way. According to Danny's map, Clockwork's tower is somewhere between Pandora's labyrinth and Pariah Dark's castle. They're not too far from Skulker's island, see?" He passed the PDA over to Sam.

_Thank God, Tucker puts everything on his PDA…_she rolled her eyes, thinking about her friend's utter dependence on technology. _Still hard to believe just how big the Ghost Zone actually is. It never seemed to take this long to get to Clockwork's when Danny was with us._ She paused mid-thought, as Tucker slammed the brakes.

"Ghost directly ahead." Came an electronic voice from the dashboard-mounted radar. They shared a look of frustration – they didn't have time for this!

"Foolish humans! You think you can hide from my fury inside a metal container?"

"Phew, I thought we were actually going to be in trouble then" Tucker grinned. "Look, can you save the whole 'Beware' stuff until later? We're kind of in a hurry." He gestured for the ghost to shoo, like he would a stray cat, but he was actually being serious.

The overall-clad ghost seemed dumb-founded by their lack of patience. They'd usually entertain his efforts, but today they were being as off-handed with him as half the ghosts in the Ghost Zone. "I am the Box Ghost. Do not think you can escape my cubic wrath forever, children. I shall return, armed with bubble wrap and the tape of parcels and, when I do, you will regret not facing me now." He paused, as though he had lost his train of thought, before going back to his usual parting line: "Beware!"

"Well, that was easy." Tucker smirked, watching the ghost fly off. "Why can't he do that every other time?"

Sam just shrugged. "Who cares? Let's just keep moving."

They knew they were heading closer to Clockwork's lair, even without Tucker's landmarks. The sensors inside the speeder began to go haywire, the lights blinking when they ought to be dim; various ghosts that came up on the radar were nowhere to be seen; and even the dashboard clock was affected, its dial counting the minutes in reverse. Yet despite the misalignment of time around them; time never truly stopped, not even on the threshold of the Time Master's realm.

Clockwork's home in the Ghost Zone was that of a single arbitrary tower, standing statically on the edge of collapse. Perhaps it had been part of a church; Tucker had often wondered why the spirit had chosen a bell tower, of all things, to reside in. Clockwork was stood at the top of the stairs, leaning casually against one of the pillars. He had been expecting them, as usual. The ghost changed from his adult form to that of an old man, weighed down by the burden of his years – endless, aeons of them.

"You're late." He remarked, tapping the glass of one of his many wrist-watches.

"What – How…? Ugh, never mind." Tucker faltered. "If you're expecting us, then you know why we're here, right?"

"Of course," the Guardian of Time grinned with all his baby-teeth, "but then, I know everything." The words seemed more smug than normal when spoken by his child-like form.

"We need to find Danny - Nocturne's taken him! You can help us find out where he is, can't you?" Sam blurted out, unable to hide the desperation in her voice. _Please. He's been gone for long enough! Just give us an easy solution for once…_she thought, her eyes burning the message into the ghost's garnet-red eyes.

"Yeah, you're supposed to be responsible for Danny, after what happened…before, aren't you?" Tucker shifted uneasily, none of them liked talking about what they'd seen of their friend's dark future and they'd become so used to avoiding the subject.

"I can't."

"What?" Sam shrieked. "So we've just come all the way out here for you to not even _bother_ to help us?" Her voice echoed around the crumbling walls and the mechanisms of the giant clock.

"Sam…" Tucker gestured for her to calm down.

"The boy's fate is…regrettable, but, in this situation, I am unable to directly interfere with his timeline." Clockwork frowned, as though in frustration.

"…What?" Sam breathed.

"There are certain events that must happen, be struggled against, affect us to the core of our being, if we are to grow into the person we are meant to be." The spirit maintained his sagacious level of calm and decorum.

"So you're saying we've got to just give up on Danny?" Tucker could see Sam was teetering on the edge of fury at this point.

"No," Clockwork said, floating over to the large window on the other side of the room. "I am saying _I_ cannot interfere. _You_ are free to move about as you wish in this 'fixed point', because your interference is _required_."

"So…if _we're_ allowed to interfere, why won't you tell us what we're supposed to do?" Tucker questioned the aging ghost.

"Because _that_ would be cheating." Clockwork said matter-of-factly. "I cannot help you, because I cannot find him if I tried…The boy lies trapped outside of my domain." He added, somewhat unwillingly, as though it injured his pride.

"How can he be 'outside your domain'? You're the master of time – _time's_ everywhere!" Sam asked bewilderedly, as she approached the middle-aged ghost.

"That's precisely the problem. I can tell you this, though, your friend is being held in a place of broken time: where the minutes and seconds are no longer announced in your world." The ghost smiled; the viewing mirrors cast a glint in his eye, like mischievous marsh lights.

"Broken time…is that possible?" Tucker said in a voice, quiet enough to be a whisper.

Sam turned back, remembering that she was not alone. To her dismay, Tucker looked just as confused as she was by the ghost's cryptic clue. "C'mon, Tucker, let's head back to FentonWorks. Jazz is a terrible liar…I doubt she'll be able to keep the Fentons fooled for much longer." Tucker smiled faintly, _it's okay, I don't understand it either. It's okay to be even more confused by the answer than the question,_ he seemed to say.

"Um, Clockwork? …Thanks." Sam waved, before the two of them raced down the spiral staircase to the waiting Spectre Speeder.

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><p><strong>AN: So what do you think? Still in character? It took me ages to think of how to write the scene with Jazz and her parents! D:<strong>

**I have the next chapter planned out already, so there, hopefully, shouldn't be as long a wait as there was for this one. ;) **

**Reviews are more than welcome,**

**Psycho xx**


	12. Space and Time

**AN: Hey Psycho here. About me saying that I was going to upload a lot quicker...well, I got a lot more homework again :/ Being a second year sucks - don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Unless it's just my course!**

**Anyway, here's the new chapter of Pesadillas, which is about Danny! :D**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Eleven: Space and Time<span>

There was a gaping hole in the room. Disrupting the spatial coherence of the realm, it hung like tattered ribbons of claw marks, showing through it the human world, or more specifically, Amity Park. Home, for the boy before him, at least. The problem was that it was growing ever smaller, with every passing moment that Wulf had spent waiting for the penny to drop for the ghost boy. The creature would have rushed the teen through the void and carried on with his epiphany later, had Clockwork's instructions not been so exact. No, he must let Danny make sense of it all first, _then_ he could flee from this wretched place. They could only hope that the guards wouldn't hear their _two_ voices coming from the solitary confinement cell. Wulf couldn't help but pace in endless circles, but the boy motioned for him to be seated. _Well, if it'll help him concentrate…_

Danny drew in a sharp breath, his eyes wide with realisation and underlying anger. Furious at his own deceit, he proclaims his desire for revenge, for swift justice to be exacted against that fiend and his somnambulists. He would have probably said more, he stood with his mouth open, a word falling stunted from his lips. A great rasping came from the door and the metal grate shifted along its rust-ridden tracks. The dimensional rift closed shut, as though it was never there, like the broken space had sewn itself back together.

"What's going on in here?" a grizzly voice called through the slat, the owner's eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"Oh crap." Danny yelped, his eyes darting guiltily, from under his snowy fringe, between the door and Wulf. "Now what do we do?" He was panicking.

"Now: we run. Come." Wulf beckoned him, walking over to the door, his claws inching further out of his fur.

The eyes in the door grew in shock. "Guards! The prisoner is escaping! He has an accomplice! I need back-up!" The voice receded, growing further away in its plight.

Danny looked to Wulf. "That's great that you got rid of him, but we're still stuck here." He got no reply. "He's gonna come back with a bunch of other guys." His tone was sceptical and bitterly hopeless, yet Wulf could sense that there was a longing to take on impossible odds, purely for the sake of proving them possible.

"You forget, that I am strong, young cub. This door is hardly an obstacle." He grinned toothily, intended as a conspiratorial grin, but made fearsome by his beastliness. In one quick, fluid movement, the metal door imploded upon itself, crumbling if pieces. The might of those claws, was incredible to behold. It seemed there was no limit to their strength; nothing they couldn't slice through.

"Ahaha, you did it!" the caged bird rarely believes his freedom, without first having some doubt in its existence. "You did it!"

"Let us leave now, young one." Wulf chuckled at the teen's over-enthusiasm.

The halls were quiet, save for the reverberating echo of the fallen metal door. The prisoner was escaping. A guard turned the corner at the end of the corridor, flanked by the one that had fled earlier; he shouted something that didn't quite carry across the distance. Danny merely presumed it was a threat. It usually is a threat. Wulf growled in impatience, before the boy shot an ecto-ray at his jailers without passing a word. His green eyes sweltered with simmering anger. He would have turned human and phased through the walls, had he not been so worried about losing his ghostly form once again. No, they would have to get out of here the hard way, through the labyrinthine mass of cell blocks and interrogation rooms.

"It should be this next left, Danny. That is where our freedom shall be realised." Wulf called from behind the teen's left shoulder. Danny turned suddenly, stopping to give the creature a quizzical look. "You, yourself, know this is not the first time that I have escaped from Walker's prison. Now's not the time. Run." He was right. The guard's shouts were growing ever closer, now accompanied by a single set of footsteps. That could only mean one thing: the warden was coming.

"Um, right. Run." Danny mumbled, turning to continue his flight. They were lucky to have had such a head start; it would be foolish to let it go to waste when they needed it the most.

Eventually, the guards lost their trail, somewhere near Skulker's island. Even so, they'd had to wait a few minutes with baited breath, to ensure that they wouldn't come back for them.

"Phew. I think that should do." Danny sighed, wiping his brow, as he brought the two of them into visibility. "I thought they'd never give up!"

"As did I," Wulf said, but something about his uneasy look made Danny think he'd wanted to say something else.

"So now what?" The boy floated up to take a seat on one of the many boulders, orbiting Skulker's domain.

"Now, we must go our separate ways, my friend. I wish to return home. You must finish this dream alone; I can help you no more. But I wish you good luck."

"Right…only I'm not quite sure how." He trailed off in thought, "Maybe Clockwork could point me in the right direction! I bet Nocturne put him in this nightmare too – I think he wanted me to believe it was real."

Wulf said nothing, merely smiling in agreement, as he leant against the wall of the Hunter's safari. "Then this is where I leave you. I hope you find your answers, young cub." He held Danny in a tight embrace, parting to say "Peace be the journey." He ruffled the boy's white hair and walked away to open a new rift in space and time. This one, too, seemed to lead to the place with an enormous clock.

"Goodbye, Wulf." Danny called after his friend.

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><p>Clockwork's tower seemed even quieter than usual, though the same could be said for the rest of the Ghost Zone. If anyone had been there, then they'd been so quiet that Danny hadn't noticed them. As he climbed the crumbling spiral stairs to the top of the bell tower, his doubts grew stronger. <em>What if Nocturne didn't put Clockwork in my dream. Who else could I turn to for advice? Unless, it's like it was with Wulf, that he can cross into my dream? No, that's stupid – Clockwork's the master of <em>time_, not dreams. He's not even the master of miracle cures!_ A grin crept across his face, as he remembered the spirit's sense of humour.

"Hello? Anyone home?" Danny called, once he'd reached the top of the stairs. "Clockwork?" He looked round over the dimly-lit place. He had never seen it look so miserable, so foreign without the light he was used to seeing from the viewing mirrors. The tower had an air of menace about it without that glow. It was like going somewhere from long ago, only to find that the place of your memories and the place you find yourself in, are nothing like each other.

He turned his gaze the other way – straight into a pair of gleaming red eyes, lost in the darkness. _Nocturne? But, I'm still dreaming, aren't I?_ Instinctively, green light enveloped his hand, eradiating from his palm for that crucial decision – fight or flight? But the figure stepped forward, closer to him. The light from Danny's energy-charged hand, revealed the being to him.

"Ah, Danny Phantom, it's been a while. What brings you here?" Clockwork greeted him, with only a hint of scepticism.

"Yeah, hi. Look, I was wondering how things were, with you keeping an eye on Dan…I mean, my evil self" he cringed. "Only, I think he's escaped." Danny added in a small voice. He couldn't really ask _this_ Clockwork why Dan was in his dream, because he too was part of the dream world – surely, for him, this was reality. He would think that Danny was mad.

"Your future self?...You're straight to the point today, aren't you?" He moaned.

"Well, it is kind of important. I need to know what's going on!" Danny could feel himself getting frustrated. He knew it wasn't safe for him to stay in the Ghost Zone to long after his escape from Walker, who knew how long it'd take the warden to organise a full scale search?

"Importance is subjective to how one perceives time." Clockwork grinned. "You see to me, time never moves in a straight line, but in a loop and–"

"Yeah, yeah – I know." Danny sighed exasperatedly, moving over to lean against the central pillar in the room. "Just please tell me, what happened? Where is he?"

Clockwork remained silent, refusing to hold the boy's gaze. He glided over to one of the main windows on the far side of the room, waiting for Danny to follow him. With a sigh and grumble, he did so. "You want answers then? You want to know why the world's in the state it's in?" His eyes were narrowed; their garnet colour seemed sapped of all its warmth, so they were like stones, cold.

"Yes, I'd like to know!" Danny leant on the window sill in anguish.

"Very well, then. The reason why the time-stream's so polluted and disorganised is because of you! Because I couldn't dispose of you as I was told, I allowed the possibility for you to create two parallel timelines to occur. It's not only your fault that _Dan_ exists, but also that I now cannot get rid of him." He stared at the overwhelmed boy with a cold expression, giving him the merciless truth of his words.

"What? You're saying that this – everything – is all my fault?"

"Precisely. You're the one who's polluted the time stream and you're also the one who's preventing it from being righted once more." He held his staff accusatorially, pointing at Danny with it, as though it was a weapon.

"I'm not sure I follow…"

"That version of yourself was created in a time when your insecurities and naivety got the better of you. How can you hope to destroy it while you're still feeling like that?" Clockwork said patronisingly, realising the teen was still confused. "He will always exist, as long as you provide the conditions that were present in creating him. Get rid of the source and the results will no longer appear."

"So I should go after him? Is that why you're mad at me?"

The spirit held his head in his hands, "It might be an idea," he said enigmatically, smiling to himself, as he went back to gazing out of the window. Minutes passed, quietly.

Then, Clockwork let out a groan in pain, his face scrunched up with the burden of it. "There never used to be…stars in the Ghost…Zone…" He gasped out, as though it was vital that he said it.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Danny exclaimed, turning to the ghost, who seemed to have got over the pain. "How's that supposed to help me?"

"Get out. Now." The halfa just stared at him, unsure whether he was being serious. All of a sudden, he seemed quite recovered, his face contorted with rage. "Leave!" he shouted at the boy, who flew off immediately, through the window.

_Well, that was interesting_, Danny thought to himself sarcastically. _But now what? Destroy Dan? I don't even know how to get back to the Fenton Portal without my map and I can't stay here. How can I find him if I'm trapped in the Ghost Zone?_ He wondered while lying on his back, watching the plumes of green vapours trace themselves in endless circles. Then something caught his eye…a star – the brightest one he could see. It looked like the North Star, even if it was in the wrong place, it was definitely Polaris! His mood lifted. _If you can find the North Star, you can always find your way home, right? Then maybe…_he smiled, knowing that for the first time in his nightmare, he was on the offensive.

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><p><strong>AN: So what do you think? Please let me know. Clockwork was hard to write dialogue for, I swear! Though, this is <em>dream<em> Clockwork, so... :P.**

**Oh yeah, and feel free to guess what the title and "peace be the journey" references are from! :D**

**Psycho xx**


	13. Doppelganger

**AN: I bet you thought I'd given up on this Fanfic! Hahaha ^^; **

**I've just been super busy lately, that's all. I got myself a part-time job, had exams to revise for, which are happening next week :/ So it may be that the next chapter is a while off yet, but for now, here's my latest.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Twelve: Doppelganger<span>

The school bell had rung before Jazz had managed to properly manoeuvre the burgundy Renault into the car park. Her hair was sticking out in awkward angles: a true bed-head. She cussed under her breath, grimacing as she saw her reflection in the rear-view mirror. She was late. That was something most unusual for her. She looked over her right shoulder, out the driver's window, craning to see the school's large outdoor clock, something that the teachers had made a big fuss over when they'd bought it some months ago. It was supposed to prevent students being late. For the first time, she realised that the clock was stuck at twenty to four. Perhaps it had been like that for a while: she had never really needed to look at it before. Surely, it couldn't have broken already! _Well, one thing's for certain – it's not _that_ late!_ She thought sardonically.

"Quarter past nine." Jazz moaned, grabbing her gloves off the dashboard before running out to class. Only when she heard the door slam some feet behind her, did she remember to press the door lock on her key. Satisfied by the high chirping noise of the car's doors locking, she ran into the main entrance.

It was some hours later, after school had finished for the day, that she met up with Sam and Tucker, next. It was only then, as they walked home, that they realised just what exactly had happened that time, a couple of weeks ago.

"I can't believe how cryptic Clockwork was being" Sam moaned, "He was absolutely no help at all!"

"Yeah?" Jazz asked, prodding for more information. They'd been too busy trying to avoid her parents when she last saw them, running out of the Fenton's lab on Saturday, to give her any details. She was eager to find out all she could about what the ghost had said to them.

"Yeah, it was almost like he didn't want to help Danny, even though he's supposed to!" Sam was clearly annoyed about it all.

"Wouldn't…or couldn't?" Tucker mumbled, from some paces behind them. The two girls stopped, dumbfounded at his accusation. "…I think he might have been giving us more of a hint than we realised, Sam."

"So tell us! What _did_ he mean by all that 'broken time' nonsense?"

"Broken time?" Jazz echoed, winding some hair around her forefinger, seemingly lost in thought. "Oh! What if Clockwork didn't mean that literally? It's like you said, Sam, he was being cryptic! So, somewhere with broken time, could just be somewhere that time's not recorded, or…with a broken clock or something…" She smiled, ideas twinkling in her eyes.

"So, he's not outside the time-stream? That's a relief, I guess." Tucker sighed, perhaps with a hint of sarcasm as even he couldn't quite see where Jazz was going with this. "But what's so special about that? Why would Nocturne hide somewhere without a clock, or with a broken one? It just seems a bit of a stretch to me."

"I don't know, Tucker, but it's the only thing I can draw from it…and if I'm right, then the only place I can think of is the school's clock tower…I'm pretty sure it was working _before _Danny went missing, but now…"

"And you're sure you're not jumping to conclusions? I know you want Danny back as much as we do, but it just seems a bit too convenient that we're making so much progress all of a sudden. I mean, I just don't want you to get disappointed, that's all…" Sam trailed off, looking down at the pavement.

"You've given up, haven't you?" the older girl exclaimed, outraged.

"No, no. We haven't, Jazz. We just want to make sure we're thinking straight before we barge in with the Fenton bazooka." Tucker said, flustered.

"Look, I'm just saying, we've been given a lead. We ought to check it out. It makes sense that he'd be there, if you think about it. The clock only broke down a day after Danny left, I think; it's a place that's supposed to represent the flow of time _and_ seeing as time is Clockwork's domain - that might explain why he said _broken_ rather than _non-existent_!" Her voice was getting a bit shrill and she knew it: she was beginning to sound hysterical. Bringing herself back in check, she said: "Please, guys, I can't do this alone. I need you on my side. _Danny_ needs you."

"Ohhhh, _fine!_" Sam grumbled, "But you best be right."

"Tucker?"

"If it's for Danny…then I say we ought to check it out."

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><p>The mist that usually filtered through the Ghost Zone began to clear around him. <em>Yes! Then that means, if I'm right and this leads where I think it does, I'm getting close.<em> Danny beamed, his heart feeling lighter than in longer than he cared to think about.

There it was! A great metal gate, stood suspended in the swirling green and fetid air; perfectly hexagonal and familiar. His fingers traced idly over the brushed steel, feeling the cold chill mitigated through his ghostly form. Even if he knew this to be a dream, it seemed, all at once, vital that he inspect the reality of the fabrications.

_I'm home._ He tossed the word around in his mind, enjoying the feel of it. "I'm home." He repeated, tasting it as it fell from his mouth, lost in the endless realm.

"Good thing this is a dream…" he muttered, as he willed himself to phase through the six inches of steel before him, gazing anew at his parent's basement laboratory as though he'd never left it. Even within the constructed reality of Nocturne's creation, this felt more like a dream than anything he had yet witnessed. It was empty. It was eerie…and worse: it was clean – something it had never been in Danny's memory!

Turning himself invisible as a precaution, he began to move through what he anticipated to be an empty house: one that had become more like a haunted house since he'd left it. He was right – no one was here, just a pervading sense of despair and emptiness. It was perhaps a worse sight than if his parents had been here to scold him for returning, he thought, bitterly.

The town he saw was the same; practically deserted. The only sign that it had recently been lived in was the ceaseless whirring of a car alarm, somewhere in the distance. _No need to be over precautious, then, _he mumbled, casting off the shroud of invisibility and descending to the streets. Despite the lack of people around town, it didn't seem as though there had been any panic in their escape. The windows remained intact, not even a scratch on the panes; cars remained parked by the kerbs, rather than in a disaster movie style traffic jam…all in all, it looked as though they'd just left, peacefully.

It was as though the city held its breath, for fear of disturbing the air.

Even Danny's footsteps felt unwelcome, the sound of his footfall, resonating too raucously in the dead space. Patter, patter, rustle. His last step sounded odd. Had it been busy he wouldn't have heard it. It was a cheap flyer, a little torn, but undamaged by the weather, supposing there was any. Crouching down, he picked it up, tentatively, as though it may crumble in his gloved hands.

A photoshopped photo of himself was centred on the page, showing him mid-morph: the left side of his face with his blue eyes and black hair; the other side with bleach white hair and acid green eyes – Phantom. It bore only this message:

'Our son; our traitor. Let your eyes see through the memories of your heart: he is not one of us.'

He knew that photoshop was not his father's forte and that it could only have come from his mother. He knew that it was all just a dream; the manifestation of his subconscious…and the malignance of his enemy. He knew all this, but it still stung.

"Funny, isn't it? ...How easily trust can be broken." The voice was male, smug and close.

Danny's head shot up like a dart, eyes wild with barely concealed anger. Screwing up the poster, his hands balled into fists at the sight of the one in front of him. He saw his mirror image, a doppelganger, or at least it was the double of his human form. As legend dictates, upon meeting your double, you are doomed to be afflicted by misery at their hands. Sam would have told him that; Tucker would have been sceptic of that. Danny had read that from one of the books in Sam's library. But they were not here and the only way to see them again was to wake up, defeating the monster – the composer of his torment – his evil self.

"Hello, Daniel. And goodbye." Dan drawled out. His crimson eyes shone with bloodlust.

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><p><strong>AN: Please please please please PLEASE -read and review! It helps keep me writing: you guys motivate me out of my laziness. Plus, I want to know what you think so I can improve! :)<strong>

**Psycho xx**


	14. Kristelnacht

**AN: Sorry for the cliffhanger from last chapter. I had planned on putting some other scenes in it, but they've been shoved back into the chapters to come, as upon editing they no longer fit in the last chapter. ^^;**

**I had originally toyed with the idea of having a chapter of Danny's fight with Dan and then a chapter of Jazz and co. confronting Nocturne...but that seemed to linear to me. I think I prefer how I ended up doing it, with this chapter being split between the two groups; gives a sense of the parallel situations in the story.**

**Thanks, as always, to my faithful reviewer, IceDragon19. You keep me motivated.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Danny Phantom, or its characters.**

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><p><span>Chapter Thirteen: Kristelnacht<span>

The clock tower was pitch black, with the new moon shedding no light upon the situation, as they ascended to its highest room; the only room. Even if they couldn't see where they were going, Jazz was pretty sure they were nearing the top of the winding staircase. Whether they had what it took to face what lay in wait for them up there, was another thing.

Every whining floorboard gave way to cold sweats and jangling nerves amongst them. Nocturne was here. He had to be. There was nowhere else he could be. They were right.

Sam, who had been leading the way as they climbed the tower, exchanged what she thought to be an encouraging look at the others, though she wasn't sure if they'd seen it. She couldn't hold it off any longer – they were here for Danny and the sooner they got to him, the better. Without hesitation, she kicked open the wooden door. The sound of it ricocheted from wall to wall, like ripples of gunshot. It sounded like a small room, as there was barely a moment's pause between the echoes.

They hadn't voiced what they were expecting, but it certainly wouldn't have been this, this stillness. There was no sign of Nocturne. No army of sleepwalkers lurking in the shadows. Instead there was an inescapable, palpable silence, which made the slamming door with its weak hinges, seem like the crime of the century. The dead sleep here: the deepest of sleep.

A soft blue light coated the room in a gentle haze; it was unnaturally pretty and pretty unnatural. It had taken them a while to notice this, once the shock had ebbed away and their eyes adjusted. When they did, it was accompanied by a feeling of guilt and wretchedness. Their best friend stood in the azure glass coffin, locked in deep sleep. A look of pain appeared etched upon his face, even as he slept.

Tucker was the first to react, running from their cluster at the door. Unthinkingly, he scraped at the hinge to the case, trying to find some leverage against it. Nothing good came of it. He spent some time looking for something, anything to smash it open, but found nought. Jazz and Sam, gazed on in shock. They'd done it. They'd found Danny. But, they had never really planned on what they would do once they had. They hadn't planned on this.

"Sam," Tucker approached them, eyes downcast and disheartened. "I can't get it open. The door's got some kind of lock on it, but it's encrypted…I don't think it'll open without Danny waking up or Nocturne's password."

"Great…" Her eyes shone with frustration, "So what do we do now?" She regretted asking it instantly. The words seemed to blemish the air, that hung around them with some sort of omniscient presence; ominous and calculating.

"We'll just have to wait, then. If – _when_, my brother gets out of there he'll probably be drained from it. We'll need to have his back and protect him for when Nocturne shows up. And, I get the feeling like it won't be long before he's back…When that happens…" she trailed off from what had been such a confident speech. Her little brother had always been protecting her in secret – now it was her turn to show him that she could be the one to look out for him.

"…It'll be the fight of our lives." Sam picked up where Jazz left off.

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><p>Danny's clenched jaw began to ache from gritting his teeth, as he scowled at the man before him.<p>

"Oh, giving me the scary eyes, Daniel? That's hardly polite. Then again, you never had any manners to begin with, what with you always running off without saying goodbye, being late for everything, even when it comes to saving the people you love…" His evil self grinned, knowing that his words were affecting the teen, even if he tried not to show it. "But then, we both know why that is, don't we?" He paused, even if it was a rhetorical question. "You never wanted to be the hero, did you? Always trying your best for others…but look where it got you – the whole town hates you. Your parents hate you." A laugh erupted, seeming to come from nowhere but everywhere at once.

Danny ran forward, throwing all his weight into one square punch. It made contact, but it didn't wipe that smug grin off the brute's face. His smirk widened, like a crack that had been fussed over until it spread. He held back Danny's quivering fist back with his, a wicked delight dancing in his eyes.

"Tsk, tsk. Didn't our parents teach you better than to pick a fight you couldn't win?" he tutted, disapprovingly, before throwing the boy backwards. Stumbling, Danny regained his balance. "Of course, we both know how this is going to end…" he continued, morphing into his true form: that of a flame haired full ghost. "…Don't we?"

"Yeah – with me beating you!" Danny cried, punching him square in the jaw. A loud cracking noise ripped the air around them, as Dan lowered his head back from the hit. It was the sound of bones grating upon one another.

"Ha! You're such a child!" He sneered, "You can't beat me – I _am _you!" He summoned forth two clones, one of them teleporting behind Danny, binding his hands in his, while the other proceeded to lay waste to the child. "No matter what timeline Clockwork gives you, the fact is, I am a part of you. You can make whatever choices you want, Danny, but make any error, any slip-up and trust me, I will not hesitate in bringing forth my future. Count on it."

The second clone stopped hitting him for a moment, as Danny had stopped reacting to it, his head hanging down, bleach white hair stained with splatters of blood.

"You…" his voice came out, ragged and uneven, "you're _nothing_ like me." Danny growled, spitting out the words like venom, not realising that his eyes darkened to a burnt looking amber. This, however, was quickly extinguished by the blue that washed over them. Determinedly, he gathered all his energy into his bound hands. They began to glow a glacial blue. "And I'll never become like you!" He screamed, bursting out of the clones grasp and showering them in ice as he did so. A grimace of pain showed on the original's face, but only for a moment. He absorbed the clones once more.

He approached his older self, his whole body taut with rage, ready for that crucial decision: fight or flight. But he'd already chosen. He was going to see this through to the bitter end. Even if this was a dream, it was still all or nothing. _People never die in their dreams_, he thought to himself_…You usually wake up just before. Some people think that if you die in a dream your heart stops beating…I guess I'll let them know if I get to that point._ His thoughts took a grim turn, despite his intentions. He was going to win, he swore. He was going to win and see Sam and everyone else.

"_Oh, please!_ What makes you so sure, hm? I'm still here. I still exist outside of my timeline. That means you still turn into me at some point. Don't you get it? I'll always be here, so long as you still have the potential to become me!" he roared.

/_"Aaargh! What are you doing, freak? Get off me! Let. Me. Go!"/_

"Sam?" Danny's eyes widened, looking around for her, searching in vain. He was sent flying.

Glass shards crackled around him as he knelt, trying to stand. Trembling. He had been thrown into the Foley's newsagent's window.

* * *

><p>The air around them had grown colder in the last few minutes, though they couldn't blame it on the vanished sun, which had long set before they set foot in the school's bell tower. They had remained standing in their huddle near the door for the past half an hour; barely exchanging a word…the atmosphere was too heavy for such small talk. The dim blue glow of the crystalline sarcophagus flickered on and off, as it had been doing for the past ten minutes. At first they had thought that it meant Danny was waking up, they'd got their hopes up and looked, but saw only that the ghost-boy tossed in his sleep, an expression of fury shadowing his face. A trickle of blood eschewed from under his hairline and he seemed to be sprinkled in a myriad of scratches, they were sure had not been there before. Sam and Jazz had been on the verge of tears, even if they didn't let them flow. Now was not the time for tears. They could do nothing but hope and wait. But for what?<p>

"My, my, we are popular, aren't we? Not only does it seem I am entertaining the young Mr. Phantom, but to also play host to his dear sister and friends? Surely, the least I can do is keep you busy until…well, until you are all reunited: one way or another." The voice seemed to pour out of nowhere, filling the room from the creaking floorboards to the ceiling and its scaffolding of beams far above them. Then they saw them; those two red orbs, emerging from the shadows towards them.

"You!" Jazz shrieked, "What have you done to Danny?"

"Dear child, what do you think I've done? The boy is a unique source of energy, unequalled by anything I have found in either the Ghost Zone or your own world. I simply had to have it."

"But, why Danny? Is it because he's half-ghost?" Tucker asked.

"Precisely. His dual nature releases the most potent of energies. Imagine it, a human heart and a ghost core, in perfect harmony and when one is low on energy, the other picks up the pace. It is what balances him, maintains him, but, in one who is whole ghost it could do much more. It could be my key to immortality; never needing to feed off another human's energy again." He smiled, teeth gleaming in the bluish light.

"The case…?" Jazz asked fearfully.

"Will only open when the process is complete, or with my express permission." He savoured the words, annunciating each and every syllable that proclaimed the boy's doom.

Sam, who had been quiet up to now, looked the spirit in his eyes, "You monster!" she cried, whipping out the Fenton Bazooka, much to the surprise of her comrades.

Before she could take aim, her arm was caught in mid-air; held back by an unnaturally cold hand. It was green. She gasped. The tight grip on her arm forced her to drop the weapon. The other two looked back at the commotion, seeing not only her distress, but the greater problem: as they had gone to confront Nocturne, the exit had been blocked by his henchmen. The other walls too, seemed to be lined with Sleepwalkers in the shadows, who, seeing one of their fellow beings succeed, let out a series of moans in salute to him. They were surrounded.

"Perhaps." The demon ghost smiled with a liar's grace, "But that is entirely subjective. Sleepwalkers – keep our visitors busy, so they won't wake our guest."

A confirmation was grumbled out by the herd of somnambulists.

They closed in on Jazz and Tucker, who'd been closer to the centre of the room. The ones behind Sam dragged her up by her arms. Their approach, rough and unexpected, caused her to cry out in alarm.

"Aaargh! What are you doing, freak? Get off me! Let. Me. Go!"

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><p><strong>AN: So stay on the look out for updates, there'll be more of them after this week, once I've got my exam out of the way.<strong>

**Let me know what you think? R&R**

**Psycho xx**


	15. Daemon

**AN: Yo ^.^ Psycho's back. Okay, so here's the moment you've been waiting for - the result of Danny's fight with Dan! Hope it lives up to your expectations ^^;**

**Enjoy~**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.**

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><p><span>Chapter Fourteen: Daemon<span>

The last dying sun beams refracted from the fragmented window around him, scattering twilight and honey coloured sequins of light about him. He forced his quivering arms to support him, as he tried to stand up from where he lay, but all it served was to earn him some deep gashes in his hands from the shards of glass covering the floor.

The light was blocked instantly, covering Danny in cold darkness. A flickering of white flames showed in the spilt glass around him. His senses were still in shock from the impact. Turning his head round to his foe brought upon him a shooting pain through his forehead. A strong burning sensation, fizzled around the edges of whatever wound had caused it. Dan had teleported behind him, bearing no expression on his face: this was routine to him, Danny remembered with a shock. His older self was used to beating his opponents in the worst of ways. Ignoring the pain and his protesting limbs, Danny stood.

The collar of his suit was crumpled in Dan's hand, wrenched upwards until the boy was held up by it. The hem of it dug sharply into the back of his neck.

"What did I tell you? You're future's mine now, Danny. It always has been." He glowered at the boy, who even on the verge of oblivion, glared at him with curiously darkened eyes. They almost matched his own.

"NO! The future's not set in stone! This is_ my_ dream!" _This is my dream_, he realised. "So get the hell out of it!" Danny fell, intangible from the man's grasp, rolling on to the floor and out of reach.

For the first time, Danny felt that indisputable feeling of raw, burning hatred cast its shadow over his heart. It weighed heavily on his chest, yet gave him renewed vigour to win this fight: it gave him the desire to end his opponent - permanently. He may have waited a year in prison, have had time to gain perspective on those events, but seeing that man – that _monster _ – in the flesh, made his blood boil.

With rage bleeding into his eyes, Danny rushed at his opponent with several ecto-blasts, forcing the older ghost back a few feet. A smell of burnt tarmac hung about the heavy air. Smoke curled around the air like claws, recoiling from the purity. Danny searched fervently, his eyes scouring through the smoke, as if he could see past them. But he couldn't. Those silent seconds passed slowly. Cautiously, he walked towards the impact zone, where his attacks had marred the land and, hopefully, his foe. He couldn't stand waiting for the air to clear.

"Why, Daniel, such a strong attack…it's almost like you wanted to kill me. But then, that wouldn't be very much like you now, would it?" A voice taunted him from within the shrouded air. Where it came from he couldn't tell. He could see nothing around him. Smoke, smoke everywhere and not a mite was clear.

"Come out, Dan!" Danny growled, "Let's end this, here and now." He beckoned, looking around, in every direction, alert for any sudden movements.

"My, my, you're becoming more like me than you realise." Danny turned sharply, only to see the man walking calmly towards him. Yet, the voice seemed to be followed by laughter, echoing in all directions. Shadows of Phantoms, all sharing the same gait, crept through the darkness towards him.

"No – I am me. No one else!" He shouted, punching the nearest of them, before running past. Outside of that vicious circle of Dans, he decided to make a move that would put him closer to the other's tactics than he would have liked. "So, get out of here, you fake!" He yelled, unleashing his Ghostly Wail; the one power he avoided using. It was usually a last resort. Using it only reminded him of back then…it was his evil self's signature move. It was the symbol of a broken future. The ripples of energy banished all the clouds from sight. Clones returned to their master, who, struck by its force, lay beaten amongst the remains of the town.

"It's over, Phantom. Your time's been up for ten years." Danny said through gritted teeth, as he struggled to maintain his ghostly form: he would not lose face here.

"So what…? Are you going to…suck me into that ridiculous thermos of yours…?" He looked up at the boy, for once at his mercy. He was breathless and his eyes were wild, half mixed with the expectation of Danny's childish morals and the niggling doubt that said the boy could kill him, if he wanted to. It was pitiful.

"You know…for once, your right. And this time, you're staying put." Danny grabbed the thermos from his belt and with one practised movement, activated the device. A blue tinted ray came forth, dragging the older ghost into its cylindrical confines.

"You can't keep me locked up forever, Daniel. This timeline, or not, you still have the potential to be me! Count on it-!"

Danny clasped the lid shut on the thermos, with a hearty sigh of relief. "You know, you talk waaay too much for me to be like you. Say your point and have done with it; don't just keep blabbering on about it…that's…Oh. Why am I still talking? I'm such a spaz." He yawned.

Succumbing to exhaustion, at last, Danny tumbled backwards, leaning against one of the remaining shops on the high street. His feet slid across the pavement, until, he sat on the cold ground, feeling colder still as he transformed back into his human self. The transformation ebbed away in that flash of white light as it always did.

"…I thought that'd have woken me up, but I guess I was wrong…maybe, there isn't a way out of this. Huh, normally when you defeat a villain in your dreams, you wake up…don't you?" Danny felt his eyes drifting, despite his struggles to remain conscious. "And Sam…I could have sworn I heard her scream. If that's going on in the outside world, I definitely need to wake up…but how?" His face crumpled into a frown. "What's going on?" He yelled.

"An excellent question, indeed, Danny."

"…Clockwork?" he slurred out, "What're you doing here? I swear – I'm not breaking the time-stream or whatever, - Dan's gone now!" He jumped to his feet, rather unsteadily, having to hold himself up against the wall once more.

"Peace, young one. I'm not here to bear you any ill will. You see, I came to congratulate you," He paused, as if assessing the boy.

"C-congratulate me…? What for?" He gasped out, the battle had really taken it out of him.

"It's not an easy thing, to face one's demons, as you have done. Yet, here you are, the victor. I believe I am right when I say, you no longer fear for your future?"

Danny looked down at his feet, the red Converse were looking tattered, as if they too had shared in his ordeal. He was suddenly all too aware of his behaviour since he first faced his other self. _Yeah, I was scared I'd become like him one day. So much so that I bottled it all up…but Sam and Tuck, they realised it…I can only imagine how worried they must have been._

"So, is he, you know…?" Danny grimaced, shifting his weight slightly.

"You mean is this the last you will ever see of him? I regret that I cannot guarantee that, Danny, for, you see, you have only defeated the manifestation of him, which existed in this dream. Your subconscious fears of that future meant that you gave yourself a villain here – one that Nocturne had never planned on." He placed a reassuring, icy hand upon the boy's shoulder. "Dan is still within my care and, in the future that I am weaving, he always will be. You can count on me, Daniel." He smiled, seeing Danny's blue eyes stir with hope from under that mess of black hair.

"Thank you, Clockwork." he said. "Really, thanks. Oh, I was wondering…seeing as you _say_ that you know everything," He began, with a wry smile, "am I going to wake up from this?" His eyes were full of doubt, worried for his freedom, even if he did ask with such a veneer of light-heartedness.

"Why, Daniel…did you not know…?" Danny found he could only pay attention for the shortest moments. His vision was clouding over and his lids felt so heavy. _Can you really go to sleep within a dream…?_ he wondered. "You're already waking…" The master of time smiled with such unguarded warmth, as Danny's world was tinged in that pallid blue light of his waking.

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><p><strong>AN: So, what do you think? Let me know, I really want to get better at writing fight scenes. Oh and how do you think I'm doing with keeping them in-character? Please R &amp; R,<strong>

**Psycho xx**


	16. The Way it's Meant to be

**AN: Sorry it's been so very long since I last updated this story. I've been so busy with university and my job. **

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><p><span>Chapter 15: The Way It's Meant to be<span>

The booming echo of the impact stung the air with oppressive silence as they waited to see if it had met its target. The Fenton Bazooka was still warm in the goth's pale hands. Dust idled in rising plumes. Danny's eyes were dry and his vision blurred; he could see little and believe even less of it. All that rattled through his waking mind was: _Is this real?_ The blue light above him flickered slowly, on and off. Muffled screams seemed to tear through the silence, but it was as if they were merely background noise that his ears deemed unnecessary, like a TV playing in another room. He felt himself sway on his dead legs, as though they had turned to jelly, or some other cliché, and the sounds threatened to smother him.

A PDA came whirring towards his feet, tossed over the floor. Perhaps it had fallen from a height. Its screen was smashed. There was some significance in that, his mind niggled at it and he could not tear his eyes from it. An override code, bathed in the dim blue light, was stuck at 78% upload completion. Arms felt like lead as he rubbed at his eyes, long crusted over with sleep and barely open. His ears popped and, with all the impact of a bellyflop, a wall of sound was thrown at his drowning mind. The azure light above him faded to nix with a faint ting of a fallen filament.

"Tucker!" Jazz screamed, watching as the young man was dragged up towards the ceiling at the hands of Nocturne's henchmen. His cry of terror had caught her attention, tearing it away from the goons approaching her. She hadn't realised it was over him dropping his PDA until too late. The malachite somnambulists grouped round her, ushering her towards a corner, ready to wrap her eyes in the thread of their creation. Lord Nocturne had bid them do as they please with the halfa's companions and so they would. This would be a recruitment drive for them, save for the younger girl. She alone was to be spared, for now: it seemed their master had other plans in mind for her.

"Jazz! Tucker!" Danny shouted, coming round from his slumber, at last. Wearily, he clambered to his feet, and forced his body to move towards them in the centre of the room.

"Ah, the young halfa is awake it seems. A pity, though mistakes such as these are easily rectified." His eyes held a malicious glint, which Danny likened to a bird sighting its prey. "Tell me child, what would you think of a little show before bedtime?"

"Enough with the games, Nocturne – Let them go! Your fight is with me" He glowered, forcing himself to shift forms as his fury bled into those brilliantly, green eyes.

"Certainly." The older ghost spoke with a grin, savouring the word as a whisper so it seemed to be a threat.

Before Nocturne had chance to retaliate, or even counter him, Danny let loose several blasts, sending him flying into the clock mechanisms across the room. They fell down in a jumble of cogs and clockwork, rusted metal and ectoplasm.

"Why you-!" Nocturne shrieked. "Sleepwalkers – form!"

Several of his henchmen swooped down from the rafters, while the ones carrying Danny's friends vanished from sight.

"You think that's going to stop me? I'm well rested and wide-awake, now." Danny jeered as he swiped at one of his zombie-like enemies. It simply stumbled back in to one of its comrades, only to disappear in a puff of smoke together.

"But do you feel better for this time spent dreaming, child? Does it make you feel refreshed, regenerated, at all?" A smile tore itself across the demon's face, as he rose from the wreckage.

"What do you…" Danny slurred, half-way through a stifled yawn, "mean?...That doesn't prove anything!" He quickly added, not wanting to lose face. "Quit stalling and let's end this, then I can show you how rested I _am_!"

"Very well, then." The dream master's eyes narrowed. He sent a couple of ecto-blasts flying at the boy, who he knew would have no trouble dodging them.

"Ha! Is that all you got?" Danny quipped, shrugging off his intangibility. "You're as good a shot as my dad! I dunno, I guess I expected better from you after last time." The boy mumbled sleepily.

Nocturne chuckled at this, _Was the boy so much of a fool, not to see his true intentions in this fight? Being a good shot was unimportant for now. By simply dodging his attacks, the child was expending his energy. Energy he didn't have._ "Dear child, it seems to be past your bed time. Why don't you just rest…Forever!" His voice grew to a tremendous roar that seemed to shake the tower's foundations, as he let loose wave after wave of ectoplasmic energy, destabilising Danny's tentative hold on his ghostly form. The child drifted into unconsciousness once more, and with a thud his body fell to the ground.

"Now, to put you back in the generator…I believe I could get used to having you around: you are by far the best battery I have ever come across. One of the strongest ghost cores in the Zone, albeit unstable, sustained by a human heart. Who would have thought that it would provide the strongest source of dream energy I have come across in aeons? Truly remarkable." Nocturne mumbled to himself, picking up Danny's limp form.

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><p>A soft ringing still shook in her ears. She could feel her hands shaking, still gripping tightly to the Fenton Bazooka, like a lifeline. Every bone in her body ached from the fall. As she was dragged up by the sleepwalkers, she'd made a mad grab for the weapon, clutching on to its shoulder strap. Looking up, she guessed she must have only been a couple of feet under the ceiling when she'd let loose her half-crazed escape. The shot pierced the air with a loud bang, rattling through the rafters. They had dropped her in that instant and dissolved into ectoplasm in the next. The rush of falling was short lived. Before long she had fallen in a mess of limbs on the floor. She knew that she ought to be in unbearable pain. She had fallen on her left hand, which at best would be sprained, she thought, numbly.<p>

Focusing on her breathing she began to look around, to assess the damage. It would be pitiful indeed to avoid one set of captors, only to become trapped once more. There were shards of spilt glass from Danny's prison and a carpet of brick dust on the floor. Splinters dug in sharply to her skin, through her violet tights. Then her eyes caught something she'd hoped she wouldn't see: Danny's body limply strewn over Nocturne's shoulder. _Oh no…_the whisper tumbled out. "Danny!" She cried, no longer caring about the consequences. Nocturne could do whatever he liked to her, but Danny was not going back in that glass coffin. They were not going to have come this far only to have achieved nothing! She fought to quell her quaking hands and lobbed the bazooka over to the boy's unconscious form. It bopped him on the head, the sudden shock of impact causing Nocturne to drop him as he stirred.

"Why you impudent, little witch!" Nocturne raged, seeming to grow an extra foot in height as he stormed over to her. Sam shuffled back to the wall, hoping to get back on her feet. Her hand was aching more now as her body began to run short of precious adrenalin. A pitch hand of night dragged her up by her throat, causing the clasp of her choker to dig in sharply, making the skin raw. "You've just sealed your fate."

Danny clambered to his feet, trembling. He couldn't fathom enough energy to call forth his powers. And so with a voice, braver than he felt, he bellowed, "Hey, Midsummer Night's Freak! Why don't you come back here and finish what you started?" He grinned, teeth clenched, fighting weariness. He tapped the bazooka with his hands, provocatively.

The phantom scowled, his face contorted with rage and scorn at the boy. How dare he insult him? He would not bear such ridicule.

Nocturne made grasps and wild jabs towards him, but Danny was the quicker of the two. His slight frame allowed him to evade the attacks, even if his fatigue made it a close call. Danny swung the gun, shoving it towards the ghost like a battering ram. Even if he was lighter on his feet than Nocturne, Danny knew he couldn't keep this up for long. He was going to have to find an opening between the spook's attacks and shoot him soon.

A loud clutter of footsteps creaked across the floor, coming into the main room. A high shriek caught the attention of everyone present: goth, halfa, nightmare and all! This was quickly followed by rapid gun fire and a speeding Tucker racing towards the fray, several sleepwalkers shuffling after him.

The shadowy monster took advantage of the distraction. A fist of darkness flew towards Danny's peripheral vision. The instant it took Danny to react sent him tripping over his own feet, falling heavily on to his back. His eyes were wide with panic as he looked into the glistening ruby eyes of his oppressor, squinting like sequins in their triumphant glee.

"Danny!" Tucker quickly threw his Fenton Thermos towards him, whilst holding his own with a tube of Plasma Peach. Danny grabbed it, pointing it up towards his foe.

"Now," he said wearily, "I think we all know how this scene plays out. Nocturne - time to hibernate. Permanently!" But something in his eyes was far from the ordinary here. Where was the conviction? The self-assured attitude? The satisfaction? Wouldn't Nocturne just come back some other time, once he released him in to the Ghost Zone? Surely, he ought to strive towards making sure this lowlife never bothered him or his friends again…He could end this, he realised.

Danny took a deep breath, forcing himself to channel his ghost powers. In his hand a tremendous surge of energy grew, verdant and crackling with its raw intensity.

"Do it, Danny!" Jazz shouted from the clock tower's maintenance platform. She was backed up against the railings, looking over her shoulder with an urgent plea to her brother. Slowly but surely, the sleepwalkers were overwhelming her, having picked her out as the less experienced fighter of the group.

"What are you waiting for? Why don't we see if you have the nerve?" Nocturne growled impatiently, unsure for the first time what the boy's true intent was.

Danny looked away, clamping his eyes shut, before redirecting the shot at the ceiling. Dust and roof tiles crumbled away from the impact zone.

"You see, in the end, you'll always choose to be _weak_. And that, is precisely why nothing will ever change." Nocturne grinned with all his teeth, smugly.

"You're right. I can't do it. But that's _not_ a weakness!" Danny spoke softly, with utmost solemnity. "I know that whatever I choose, it's what defines me! I'll never become like him, so long as I choose to be true to myself." He raised the thermos up to Nocturne's chest, dispelling the night-time demon into its confines.

"Danny, you did it!" Jazz beamed, running down the stairs, now unburdened by the sleepwalkers.

"I knew you would" Sam smiled warmly, reaching to give him a hug.

"Hey! I'm right here you know!" Tucker groaned. Danny and Sam both blushed deeply, quick to let go of each other.

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><p><strong>AN: So what do you think? Please let me know and R&amp;R. :)<strong>

**Psycho xx**


	17. Poetic Justice

**AN: Hi guys, this is the penultimate chapter of this story. Kind of a shame it's all coming to an end. So, yeah, these two chapters are really going to be wrapping things up and setting the scene for the last series of Danny Phantom (cos I love foreshadowing!). Hope you guys enjoy it. I'm not a huge fan of how this one turned out, as it seems fairly rushed to me, but that's probably because I've got used to writing more fast-paced stuff, lately.**

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><p><span>Chapter Sixteen: Poetic Justice<span>

A great shadow stole across the hallway as the reunited friends made their descent from the clock tower. It was hard to tell in the few rays of dawn-light what it was. From what they could tell, it was monstrous in stature, with a grizzled maw lined with teeth. Danny, who had been at the front of the group, held his arm out, keeping everyone back. They had already risked enough to find him. They waited there in with agonisingly short patience, tensed and listening to every creaking floorboard. The noises drew close and a raspy, panting drew near, like an asthmatic in a hurry, towards them. Through the darkness, a soft light was visible, like a will-o'-the-wisp shrouding a ghastly form.

"Lupido?" A soft voice fell cautiously from those grizzled chops, illuminated by an eerie, green light. "Ne estu zorgata."

Danny released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding and the green light was diminished. His nerves were still taught after the fight with Nocturne. He hadn't realised that he'd instinctively called the energy into his palms. "…Wulf." He smiled warmly in relief.

"Saluton…amiko." Tucker grinned from behind Danny's shoulder, glad to have the chance to use his faltering Esperanto.

"Wulf! What are you doing here?" Sam said, laughing in relief.

"Wulf…?" Jazz asked questioningly, her head darting between her brother and his friends, hoping for some explanation.

"It's, erm, a long story, Jazz. I'll tell you later, I promise." Danny smiled. In the chaos over the last few months, between his sister finding out about his extra-curricular ghost fighting and various world-saving escapades, there really hadn't been the time to detail every ghost he'd ever come across.

"Ah, Daniel." A voice shining with paternal praise, stepped out of the darkened hallway. "I'm so glad to see you're finally awake. Clockwork emerged from the cloister of shadows.

"Clockwork…I didn't realise you two knew each other." Danny said, surprised by the revelation.

"Well, my friend here has helped me out on a great number of occasions, with his unique area of expertise. Not least, the incident surrounding you these last few weeks."

"Oh!" Danny flushed as he recalled suddenly how he had seen them both in his dream. He'd never thought that they had been any more than a vision in a dream, but Wulf's claws can tear through dimensions, so who was he to say what was and wasn't possible? "So…it really was you who helped me in my dream, then?" His friends gave him a questioning look, surprised to hear how much they had missed.

"Indeed, it was. I have to admit I had…misgivings over how successful you would be. I apologise; I should not have doubted you, especially after seeing you best your older self." Clockwork, in his youngest of forms, looked downcast and disheartened.

"Wait! Dan was there?" Sam asked in surprise.

Danny kept his back to her, his shoulders tense, as he spoke in a low voice, "He's gone now, though…" He turned, with a weak attempt at a smile on his face, "So don't worry about it."

"Danny…" Jazz shook her head, upset to hear what her brother must have gone through in their absence.

"So, Clockwork, Wulf; what brings you here? It hardly seems like a casual visit?" Tucker said somewhat cheerfully. He had picked up on the sudden, glum mood that had pervaded their ranks.

"Well, actually, I came to ask Daniel here, what he intended to do with Nocturne, now that he has defeated him." The master of time spoke, his appearance twisting into that of an old man, gnarled and stooped over by the weight of his years.

"…If I release him back into the Ghost Zone, he'll just come back won't he? Who knows what he'd try and do then?" Danny said pessimistically.

"It is entirely possible that he would. In fact, that is precisely what would happen if this path is followed. However, it is not the only option available to us at the moment."

"What do you mean?"

Clockwork's crimson eyes glinted with mischief. "May I suggest that we had him over to Pariah Dark. If he craves dreams so much, then he will find exactly what he craves in the sarcophagus of forever sleep. It would hardly be a bother to anyone if he fed on his majesty's dreams."

"Poetic justice." Sam beamed, snapping her fingers.

"Precisely."

"Erm, okay then. Yeah. The last thing I want is for that creep to come back to our world again." Danny smiled, offering the thermos to him, glad to be rid of that foul ghost.

"Very well then, I shall be off. Oh, but before I go, I just want to say well done, Danny. I hope that after this mishap, you'll be much more forgiving of yourself as you are with others and that you should be free to enjoy the peaceful days that are to come, while they last."

His voice faded away into the silence of the tower, until he was gone. They carried on walking down the stairs with Wulf quietly. It seemed that no one dared to speak, due to the language barrier. Although Danny was aware that Wulf understood English, even if he didn't speak it; Danny also knew that he would be unable to understand much of what Wulf said in reply. It really was a cache twenty-two.

In the light of a new day, everything seemed much better. Danny wondered whether it was down to him being trapped inside a nightmare, or whether he'd always been an optimist. Whatever the reason he was grateful for it, even if Clockwork had forecast doom on the horizon…

Turning to Wulf, Jazz asked, "Just what exactly did Timelord mean by, _while they last_?"

"His name's not Timelord, Jazz. It's Clockwork. Sheesh!" Sam frowned. She was finding it easier to get on with Danny's sister, but even so, there were some things that were just unbearable. Just how many times did Danny need to tell her the names of the ghosts before she'd remember them!

"Whatever!" Jazz grumbled, not wanting to stir up old arguments.

They all looked towards Wulf, who was shifting uneasily, as if he would prefer to avoid this conversation if he could.

"Ne mi konas, lupido. Sed, mi pensas ke estos pli problemoj en vian futuron. Mi esperas ke mi estas incorecta, pro vin." He smiled, in a way that said farewell, before ripping open a rift back to the Ghost Zone.

"Tucker? Care to translate…?" Danny asked, curiously.

"Er…I'm not really sure what he said, Danny. I guess I need to brush up on my Esperanto." He gave his friends an apologetic look, even if it was for a different reason than the one they believed. He didn't want to cast a shadow over the occasion. They finally got Danny back, beat the bad guy and were heading back home – this wasn't the place for bad news.

"Oh well, I doubt it's anything we need to worry about right now, anyway. C'mon, Danny, your mum and dad'll be expecting you back home." Sam smiled.

"Really? But I've been gone for…ages!" He said after a long pause, not quite sure just how long he'd been kept unconscious.

"They, erm, may have seen you go to bed last night" Jazz gave a nervous laugh.

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><p><strong>AN: So what did you think? Feel free to R&amp;R :)<strong>

**psycho-eyes-ON**


	18. Epilogue: One Day

**AN: Hi guys, sorry about all the long hiatus periods you've been subject to over the course of this story. Needless to say that, just like this fanfic, has reached its end. Here is the epilogue of Pesadillas. Enjoy~**

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><p><span>Chapter 17: One Day...<span>

Danny could feel the concerned looks his friends were shooting him from behind his back. He understood why they were being so tentative around him, but it didn't mean he liked it. He just wanted things to be like they were, as if this sordid mess had never happened. He wanted to hear Tucker and Sam comment on how much of a clueless daydreamer he was being, or for Jazz to get on her high horse acting like a nosey, meddling sister.

He sighed, finally pealing himself from the grubby, grey Seat he'd been leaning on for quite a few hours. They'd stood in the school car park for hours now, engulfed in the silence, unable to break it, even to ask why a car other than Jazz's had been there all night. He felt exhausted, despite how much sleep he'd had and nothing made sense.

"You can relax, you know." He chuckled, turning to see their anxious faces drift into weak imitations of smiles only a moment too late. "It's over, isn't it?"

"And you're sure you're okay, Danny?" Jazz fussed, clasping her hands in front of her. "You've barely moved, or even said a word since Wulf left…that's…that's not like you."

Sam resisted the urge to point out that Jazz actually remembered a spirit's name for once. She walked over to him, trailing a hand across the car, before realising how dusty it was. "I hate to say it, but Jazz kinda has a point. What's wrong? I can tell something's bothering you."

"I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine. Isn't that what matters?" Danny's voice grew shrill as he tried to avoid the subject. Sam looked at him disparagingly. "Okay! Fine. I just need to know, how long I was out of it? Are my parents okay? I just don't want to have made them worry, that's all…" People often use the word fine as a wall to hide their emotions behind, Jazz would theorise. Instead, she smiled softly and said:

"Let's go home. Two weeks is long _enough_ to keep people waiting, you know?"

His sister walked back to the car, assuming that he would follow not long after.

"Well that was helpful!" Danny grumbled, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets. His right hand struck against something hard. "Oh, yeah. Tucker, I think you're missing something." He said handing over the much loved PDA to his friend. "I don't know if it'll be much use anymore though. They aren't exactly known for flying."

"My PDA!" the boy shrieked, "It's ruined. Oh well…it went to a good cause. I guess I've finally got an excuse to upgrade to the new model!" He joked. The loading screen of the damaged device would never leave his room, even months after when he bought the newer spec. "Oh and you were gone for about two weeks or so, man." he said answering the question Jazz had ignored.

"What? Wait, you're joking like last time, right?" He shook his head, no. "But what about my parents?"

"Don't worry about it, Danny. We've got you covered, buuuut I'd still head back soon, just in case. The last time your parents saw you was yesterday night and it's coming up noon." He grinned mischievously with a knowing look in his eye.

"How'd you trick them into believing I was home?" Danny asked, puzzled.

"We got Jazz to cover for you. Seriously, your parents must think anyone with a black wig is you! …Not that my parents are any better – we had Tucker dress up like me once and they never realised it!" Sam laughed, keeping eye contact for a little longer than she had intended.

Tucker's eyes darted between the two of them, "I'll, erm, meet you back at the car. You guys must have a lot to talk about…" He mumbled before rushing across the other side of the car park.

Danny looked on in disbelief. "What was that about?"

"…Clueless" her lips enveloped the word in a mocking, sweet, coy smile. "It is Tucker we're talking about, after all." She added, before he could link her remark back to their teasing of him.

He laughed. _To think, I almost forgot what it was like to see you smile_, she thought, pushing down the stirring sensation within her chest. "Thank god you're back, Danny. You've no idea how worried everyone was…how worried I was." She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, starring at the ground.

"Well, for what it's worth, I'm sure I'd be just as lost if anything happened to you…or Tuck or anyone else." he smiled. "Thanks for finding me, Sam."

She could feel the heat rising to her face as she laughed off the innocent remark, "You seriously think we'd let you go without a fight? C'mon. Besides, it was mostly thanks to Jazz, that we were able to get to you, you know?"

"Jazz?" He said clearly surprised. After her initial insistence to help with his ghost hunting, she'd kept her distance, not wanting to get in the way. So, despite her concern, he had been surprised to find out she was the instigator of their expedition to find his ghastly kidnapper. "I guess having a nosey sister isn't always such a bad thing then." He gave her his usual boyish grin.

"It's funny. I always used to think Jazz would go solo to try and find you, I mean she and I have never exactly been on great terms…but I found out that we have quite a lot in common. Especially where you're concerned." She trailed off, heading over to Jazz and Tucker.

"Wait! What's that supposed to mean?" Danny cried in surprise, jogging to catch up with her.

"I'll tell you about it sometime." _One day_. She stumbled over her words, flustered and delaying the inevitable.

* * *

><p>And so it came to pass that the Daniel Fenton bested his worst nightmares and looked ahead to many more peaceful days with a steady heart. Why, even as I look now, through the spectral haze of my observatory's temporal mirrors, I see him smiling alongside friends that will arm him best for the future ahead of him. Little does he know that the one day his friend spoke of shall be upon them, sooner than they realise:<p>

The denizens of the Far Frozen speak in their lore of a great hero who will rise up to defend both the Ghost Zone and the mortal realm in our darkest hour. Wulf, too, has confided in me of this dark hope, as has he warned the boy, despite his confusion. I would like to hope that this fortnight's events will prepare him for what lies ahead.

That said, I have no need for hope. After all, I know everything.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Thanks for sticking with me. Please R&amp;R as always, dears. <strong>

**Also, whilst Pesadillas has reached its end, do keep an eye out for my Legend of Korra fic (which is a finale rewrite) coming soon!**

**For now this is peyON signing off.**


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